


To Just Get Away From Everyone

by TOWRTA



Category: Glass (2019), Split (2016), Unbreakable (2000)
Genre: An OC called Ranger Dan, Angst for days, Black Clover Group, Character Study, Daddy Issues, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Happy Ending, Not-DID Representative, Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn, Small Scope, The Integration of Kevin Wendell Crumb
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2019-10-14 21:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 63,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17516189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TOWRTA/pseuds/TOWRTA
Summary: A.K.A.: The Integration of Kevin Wendell CrumbWhen the Beast fails to save Casey Cooke from a sniper round, it's the final straw. The division of the alters has done more harm than good and enough is enough.So, with help from Casey and the Dunn Boys, and a cabin in the woods of Wyoming, Kevin Wendell Crumb is forced to come face to face with every part of himself - whether he wants to or not.Because united we stand, divided we fall.





	1. To Just Get Away

**Author's Note:**

> A fix-it story, because did you see the way Casey and Kevin looked at each other? Even if it remains platonic, they deserve happiness together. (And not DID-representative, because K.W.C. is a special case.) In this you will meet every single one of Kevin's alters one way or another and he will meet them too. Oh, and Joe and David are there as well. In a cabin. In Wyoming. 
> 
> (I swear, this will have a happy ending and little islands of peace along the journey, even if the ending is going to get quite grim. There's Patricia, after all.)

When he switched, he groaned, he twisted, he panted. Every tendon and vein and artery in his neck stood out as if he might rip apart from the pressure of the change, before finally, _finally_ , the new alter stood before her – arms folded or one hand holding the shirt collar closed or grinning with infantile excitement or any of the many other expressions and postures and breathing patterns of the alters. She had not met them all, she wondered whether she wanted to, but she knew what it looked like when he changed.

Except . . . this time was different.

One moment there was Kevin, saying, “Hey,” and smiling like she was his whole world, and then there was the Beast, pushing her aside, and she heard a _zip_ through the air and a hole was in his stomach, and he leapt past her. She spun and saw him sprinting, then loping on four legs, then sprinting again, heading for the van and the sniper on top. The sniper got one more shot off – it grazed the Beast’s hip and he didn’t feel a thing – before the Beast tore him from the roof and stomped on his spine.

The doctor with a lion’s mane for hair and those compassionate – lying – eyes ran from the van. She tottered in her heels and the Beast caught her with ease. Her lips parted, she said, “No, Kevin Wendell Crumb!” but the Beast was in control. She did not have the strength to call Kevin out, not like Casey did. The Beast bit through her neck and relished the impure blood gushing down the collar of her white blouse. She gaped and choked and hovered a hand over her throat.

She fell.

The Beast was about to turn towards Casey, his pure one, when he glimpsed the man who’d beaten him. The green poncho still dripped from the tank and he was unable to lift himself off the sodden grass. The hospital’s eastern lawn was a boggy swamp now. Mr Glass had been right, water was his weakness. The Beast grinned teeth dripping blood and stalked closer. The man’s son screamed and fought against two officers dressed in SWAT gear. So weak. Nothing like his father.

Except another SWAT team member grabbed the man by the neck and started dragging him. The Beast saw the pool of water in the pothole. He understood.

He grew angrier – the man was _his_ to defeat, _his_ to destroy. _His_ enemy to battle just like Mr Glass had said. With a roar, the Beast lunged for the SWAT officer and bashed his head into the drenched concrete inches from the choking man. There was a crack, like an eggshell breaking.

David Dunn lay before him, pathetic, ready to be devoured.

A bullet struck the Beast’s shoulder. He shuddered, almost tripping over Dunn, then he turned and glared and saw the man with the pistol. He grabbed Dunn by the slick poncho and threw him far from the puddle, saving him for later, and went for the remaining SWAT team. It was pitifully easy. They were lambs compared to him, helpless and white as snow and he ripped them apart. Now for Dunn, whose son had run to his side. The Beast roared. Time to take out the one who protected the impure, screw the Osaka Towers.

“Kevin . . .”

He stopped.

“Kevin, please.”

Casey lay in the gutter. Her head tilted towards him as she stretched out a hand. Blood stained her fingers. That pretty new shirt she wore, the pink one with the buttons that Barry approved of much more than her old hunting gear, was red over the abdomen.

In the room of chairs where the Beast stood in the light, those alters who were aware stood and screamed at the Beast.

“Casey!”

“Oh, my dear baby girl.”

“You were supposed to protect the broken!”

“She was pure! How could you let this happen?”

“He . . . he failed . . .”

Dennis looked at Hedwig, who was an approximation of Kevin aged nine and not entirely real in this odd mindscape they shared, and said, “Take him out.”

Hedwig, shaken, tear-stained, nodded, insofar as he could, and the Beast was ripped from the light and dragged, roaring, back to the train yard. The alters watched him go with relief. Most of them agreed with Dennis – so much death and carnage had not been their intent. They wanted to protect Kevin and be understood but the way the Beast handled things could not be the answer, especially if it meant Casey Cooke got shot.

Hedwig and Barry wrestled Patricia into her chair and chained her there.

Kevin slumbered deep within himself.

Dennis stepped into the light.

* * *

“Casey.”

She waved a hand through the air and felt it being grasped. Strong fingers slipped through hers and became slick with blood. Dennis’ scowl floated in her vision. She felt colder, cold like in the cage. Winter had set in deeper since the three weeks she’d been taken and it invaded her through the wound in her stomach. It pushed out the blood and replaced it with ice water.

Dennis said, “It’s going to be okay, Casey,” and lifted her as if she weighed nothing.

He did this with Marcia and Claire, she remembered. Dennis tried to get Marcia to dance for him and locked Claire in a storage room. Dennis wanted the Beast to eat the impure. Dennis was dangerous. She did not trust any of them, except maybe Barry and Kevin. Hedwig was too enamoured with the Beast, Patricia was his high priestess, and Dennis his faithful servant.

Right then, Dennis was all she had.

Lying limp across his arms, she saw Joseph Dunn kneeling by his father and scrabbling at the plastic fabric. He was crying.

Her worldview shifted in painful bounces and she saw Mrs Price kneeling by her son and carefully tracing the edge of his face. She was smiling.

Bounce.

Oh. There was Dr Staple. She didn’t have a throat anymore. Casey smelled blood – a familiar smell that reminded her of her father – and wondered how she could smell the dead doctor from so far away, and then she realised it was her own blood and the stench of it filled the car Dennis placed her in.

“Nice work, Dennis,” said Barry. “Let’s get you to hospital, love.” Barry put the car into gear. Casey watched his calm face, watched his hands and the ease with which he ignored the blood, and wondered how one person could be so many and wondered if she was splitting apart too. It felt like it. Below her ribcage it was as if she was being sawn in two.

She remembered pain, though. Pain was an old friend and she could put it to one side to say, “But they’ll recognise you.” Barry raised an eyebrow. “You –” They went over the speedbump at the end of the hospital’s drive and she hissed. “You were on the news.”

“Huh,” said Barry.

“My . . . my foster mom’s a nurse.” It was getting harder to speak. The ice water had made it to her head, and everything throbbed.

“Hold on, darling, where can we find her?”

“Four-three-three, Adelaide Road. Cobb’s Creek.”

“Got it.” Barry caught her hand and gave it a squeeze. “We’ll get you through this, don’t you worry.” He had this wonderful tenor voice that made her want to believe him.

Except it wasn’t only him in there – Patricia and the Beast waited.

Trapped and in pain and relying on the goodwill of a monster . . .

She knew this scenario well. 

* * *

For once the collective consciousness of Kevin Wendell Crumb was almost in harmony. Those that could agreed together – Casey Cooke was more important than any Osaka Towers could ever be.

So they let Barry drive and watched on while Hedwig kept the Beast and Patricia firmly bound. The little boy couldn’t care about the mythical beast anymore when his girlfriend was about to die. Patricia crooned and wheedled and used her powers of adulthood against him and he ignored her and kept watching the vision through the light, absorbed by the spectacle as only children could be.

Inward thought is a funny thing. Humans imagine we have a monologue running through our minds of clear-cut words and sentences and punctuation, because that is how we write it out. Our diaries and memoirs and voice-overs are crafted so others can understand us, starting at one point and ending in another, with obvious steps to bridge the gap.

Yet that is patently untrue. Human heads are a riot of impressions and sensations and discarded ideas and growing beliefs, built by experience upon experience and truths that may or may not be true. We are constantly absorbing, constantly thinking, constantly feeling. We create ourselves within our minds without us being aware of it.

For Kevin Wendell Crumb, his alters were not linear thoughts writing themselves into a script in typewriter font. They responded to outside stimulus and each other – they thought in images and opinions and cut-away memories and created a riotous tapestry of mingling personalities as they absorbed and thought and felt, using the same brain to create themselves. It could be utter chaos. Most of the time it was – especially for Barry, who knew of all the personalities as intimately as he knew his own. Once upon a time he had unimpeded access to Kevin’s mind and tempered it with love and affection. Under him, they worked together as best they could to protect Kevin. Twenty-two disparate people, one goal.

But the Beast arose and Dennis and Patricia learnt about Hedwig and things went horribly, horribly wrong. Barry lost control. The other identities started switching sides. The colour of Kevin’s mind went from a pretty Jackson Pollock to Goya’s gruesome black paintings. He lost time, something that'd he'd never had a problem with since his inception.

It wasn’t so much true belief as it was self-preservation. The other identities went with the Horde because to refuse meant being trapped by Hedwig. For most it was unacceptable. Beyond keeping Kevin safe, an alter wants time in the light; it’s one of their primary drives. No one wants to be stuck in the backseat watching someone else drive for eternity.

The matter of Kevin’s mind grew darker, until Barry couldn’t see the light anymore. Just death.

Sometimes he sought out the Dennis shaped impression amongst the Horde to see what the oldest alter thought. What he found was exhaustion and the memory of a girl.

Within Hedwig he found hero-worship and the feeling of a kiss.

In Patricia, he saw nothing but narrow-focus faith, unshaken until the Beast was questioned. He’d wished for the doctor’s words to be enough sway her. For a while he’d been hopeful. Then Elijah Price came and tore that hope apart.

Barry sighed and wanted something warmer – and more fashionable – than hospital pants. He twisted the heater knob and left bloody smears on the dash. Hot air blasted out. Casey sighed in relief.

Dear Casey. Barry’s hope resurfaced when he looked at her. If anyone, _anyone_ , could stop the Beast and the Horde for good, it would be this girl, who was bleeding out on the leather car seat.

Barry examined his mind and found worry, fear, horror at what the Beast had allowed to happen. Regret. He heard one voice more insistent than the rest; Dennis’ slow, ponderous drawl, laying the words in perfect order with heavy care.

Barry stepped to one side in the light and let Dennis join him. He could feel Dennis’ restraint, a tight leash on smouldering rage.

“I never wanted this,” said Dennis.

“I know, I know,” Barry replied, speeding to overtake a slow Corolla on the thruway. Cobb’s Creek was an hour from Raven Hill Memorial Hospital and with every second all the alters grew nervous and the anxiety was beginning to show in Barry’s hands. He kept flexing them on the steering wheel, over and over. Dennis wasn’t helping; he stared at the blood everywhere and the grass stains on his pants and fought down the urge to clean or scream.

“There’s a vet nearby.” Dennis nodded at the sign. “They can help.”

“They’ll call the police,” said Barry.

“We can be gone before they come.”

“If that bullet has hit any internal organs a vet won’t be able to help!”

Kevin’s mind exploded with shouting and suggestions and it took precious seconds for Barry to hear Casey’s whisper below it all.

“It went all the way through,” she rasped. “Felt it. Didn’t hit anything major. My uncle taught me about gun wounds.”

In the light, Dennis glared at Barry. Barry sighed and turned left at the next intersection, following the green arrow pointing to _Catwell’s Veterinary Clinic, Open 9-5, Seven Days._

* * *

Doctor Melling was a world-renowned expert in feline renal failure. Doctor Melling had won awards for her work – the ones that could be framed hung on the walls of her consulting room. The ones that sat on carved wood were placed on the top of her shelves and dusted twice a week by the sixteen-year-old daughter of the practice owner. Doctor Melling was fifty-nine, enjoyed a donut on Saturday evenings, and took excellent care of her teeth.

Doctor Melling took in the crossed arms and scowl of the man and returned to stitching the girl on her personal consulting chair. She could not use the table because the table was used for nothing larger than a sheepdog. The girl had refused offers of analgesia, on the grounds that she knew how to handle pain – Doctor Melling suspected she simply didn’t want to try multiple doses of opioids meant for cats.

“How is she?” said the man, who wore a crisp blue shirt taken from Doctor Aaron’s cubby hole. The bullets in his stomach shoulder had been dug out with little blood and great stoicism on his side. Doctor Melling had mulled over asking why these two young people had been in a firefight – and especially why the man had muscle so dense and strong that the bullet had gotten lodged in the fibres and burrowed no further – but Doctor Melling was not a simpleton and had lived as a twenty-year-old girl in New York City in the eighties. She kept her head down and understood threat.

“She’ll be fine. Antiseptic, stitches, and clean bandages will do the trick.”

“I’m sorry we can’t pay,” said the girl, wincing a bit with the pull of the sterile thread.

Doctor Melling smiled, acutely aware of the man and the blood under his fingernails. “Nonsense. No trouble at all.”

Later, when the girl limped out the back way and was helped into the nondescript black sedan, Doctor Melling raised her eyes up to the sky and paid no attention to the number plate. She studiously wrote over the memory of the two by planning for her day. It was eight-thirty in the morning.

* * *

Before Dennis joined the Horde, Barry and Dennis had tag-teamed the job at the zoo. Barry was personable and friendly. Dennis was good at impersonating his fellow alter, scarily good, and he knew how to be precise and efficient with his work. Between the two of them, keeping up the image of Kevin wasn’t difficult. They’d made a good team once upon a time.

They made contingencies for Kevin – caches of money around the city and even out of state in case of emergencies. They had safehouses, spare clothing, more toothbrushes. Dennis knew the necessity of keeping things in order in case of a mess. They headed to one of these safehouses now, the one in Ithaca.

Casey fell asleep on the ride and Barry called a house meeting for those competent and in the know. Dennis drove upstate, listening to the collective as they spoke in images and ideas and feelings.

“We should never have listened to the Beast,” began Barry.

“I could have told you that.”

“Duh.”

“A decision worse than Napoleon invading Russia.”

“Ban Patricia!”

“Hedwig too.”

“What did I do!?”

“You’re too easily swayed!”

“We must protect Kevin.”

“We have to protect Casey too.”

“I like her. She has spunk.”

“Plus she’s hot as –”

“–We need to decide what to do next.”

“Protect Kevin, duh. And get some proper food. I can’t believe the Beast _eats_ people. Eugh.”

“Foul.”

“Cannibalism has been practiced for millennia –”

“–We have to let Kevin take over.”

There was a pause. A long pause. Then . . .

“What?”

“He’s too weak!”

“Yeah, nah, dog, you crazy or something?”

“But I won’t exist if we let Kevin back into the light!”

And silence fell again. That was the crux of the matter, wasn’t it? To let Kevin step into the light and stay there meant the alters would be left to dwindle and die, collapsing inwardly like forgotten thoughts and losing themselves to the ether of his mind.

"You were willing to sacrifice countless girls but you can't sacrifice yourselves?" said Barry. "You won't die anyway. You will go back into Kevin's identity, where we should be."

Hedwig sniffed. “But what if Kevin doesn’t like Drake?”

Patricia laughed, soft and horrible. “My dear boy,” she said to Barry, “You can’t think Kevin can sustain himself, can he? He’s too weak, too frail. We must comfort him, keep him safe. He cannot handle the world on his own.”

“But he’s not on his own, is he?” Barry pointed out. “He has Casey.”

Patricia cackled. “The girl with the abusive uncle? You think she would be able to help him? Oh, precious. You have a crush.”

“She’s _my_ girlfriend!”

“That girl could be the answer!” Barry shouted. “We’re not meant to be around forever! You remember what Doctor Fletcher said – we’re here to protect Kevin. That’s why we exist. But all we’ve done is let a cannibal loose on the world and almost destroyed whatever chance of happiness Kevin has left! What do we matter if Kevin dies?”

“I don’t want to die.”

“None of us do, Hedwig.”

“Speak for yourself. I’m sick of being stuck in the body of a dude.”

Barry pinched the bridge of his metaphorical nose. “How about this; each one of us meets her and tells her our story.”

“Huh?”

“You don't want to die, right? Then meet Casey, teach her about yourself, so then she can reteach you to Kevin if necessary. You can be immortalised in her.”

Patricia raised an eyebrow. “Why don’t you simply tell Kevin yourself?” she asked.

Barry replied deadpan, “Because Kevin will not want to talk with us. We nearly got him killed, remember?”

She smiled. “Touché.”

Barry stepped up to Dennis in the light. “Catch all that?”

Dennis nodded in the car. “We’ll have to find somewhere secluded.”

“We can start again, if she lets us.” Barry thought of the way she’d taken Kevin’s arm in the hospital room, and the way she hugged the Beast into submission, and Dennis looked at Casey.

The others wondered if this might just work and who on earth Kevin Wendell Crumb would become if it did.

* * *

He looked around and saw pine trees marching into the distance and a trickling stream weaving through them. The trees were full with green leaves, painting the sunlight emerald. Warm earth and grass and wildflowers carpeted the forest floor. In the far distance, he saw a deer bounding along a path and out of sight, a flash of pale gold amongst the trunks. A fresh breeze of pine swept along and ruffled the hair around his ears. He’d never been anywhere this beautiful. How was he here? Wearing a t-shirt and lightweight camouflage pants, sitting on a wooden porch, a vegetable patch and herb garden off to his right, a one-storey log cabin at his back and . . . _her_ next to him.

“Kevin?” she said, huge brown eyes wide with worry. “Kevin, stay in the light with me, please.”

Kevin blinked and tried to think of something to say. “I never caught your name.”

“Casey Cooke.” She smiled at him, a little hesitant.

“How long’s it been?”

“Six months. We’re in Wyoming.”

“Why . . . why am I here? Why are you here?”

Her smile strengthened and she placed her hand on his. Her hair was drawn into a ponytail, exposing the entirety of her face. She was even prettier than he remembered, freckled from the sun. Her exposed arms were lean with muscle. He had a sudden recollection that wasn’t his, of her and him stripping branches off logs with saws, her brushing the sweat from her brow and laughing at something he – Dennis? Barry? He knew those names at least – had said.  

Casey Cooke looked at him with compassion and – dare he think it – love. Perhaps not romantic love and he was glad for it. Kevin did not, and maybe never would, wish for a relationship. At the most he wished for a friend. And Casey Cooke leaned against his shoulder and gazed over the little patch of wonder before them. She said, “We’re here because we both deserve peace. The others agree.”

“The others?”

She nodded. “They want you safe, Kevin, and whole.”

“Whole?”

“It's just you in there now."

Kevin concentrated and sensed . . . Peace. His mind was clear and quiet for the first time in forever. “What happened?” he breathed.

“We've got a lot to catch up on.”


	2. Bernice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin begins a long road to recovery in a place that should be as close to Heaven as Earth can get. 
> 
> But his head is his personal Hell, and he's about to meet all of it. 
> 
> At least Bernice is nice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so, I got a request to continue this story (you know who you are), and now I'm committed to writing 24 more chapters for a one shot. (Haha, what an interesting exploration of my time management skills.) 
> 
> Right, we've got one chapter per alter (except for those I can conceivably double-up on), in which we get to explore who they are, why they exist, and what their deal is, and have Kevin come to terms with it, all the while balancing Kevin's friendship with Casey, Casey's own healing process, and the Dunn Boys(TM) too, just for kicks. And you can bet your bonnets this is going to get dark, because at some point Kevin's going to meet Patricia . . . and the Beast. 
> 
> Strap in, we're going for a ride. Let's start Kevin off easily - oh, don't worry, the chilled out nature of this chapter is pretty-much a one-off. Mwahaha.

“But first,” said Casey, “a tour before the boys get back.”

“The boys?”

She nodded, and flung herself off the edge of the porch, falling three feet to the soft grass below. She stretched her tan arms over her head and shifted through the gold-green space around her with confidence, oh so different from the terrified and pleading girl he’d known. “David and Joe. You’ll meet them soon. David’s dad built this place as a hut for hikers.”

“But I thought . . .” What was that memory of stripping logs, then?

Casey held out a hand, gesturing for him to jump. He did, skimming past the honeysuckle on the porch posts, and landing without a sound. His body remembered what to do, even if his mind didn’t. His mind was mostly bare, except for traces of his mother’s anger, a bus, Doctor Fletcher, this girl.

“There was a landslide a few years back,” she said. “When they remade the trail, the hut got bypassed and we got to move in.”

“Was that . . . legal?”

She shrugged. “We’re fugitives as it is. Nothing we do is legal.”

“What?”

“Come on. Tour time.”

It was plenty big enough for four, maybe five people, raised three feet off the ground with a wrap-around porch. Six steps led up to the front door – wide open, looking into a neat open plan living area with bookshelves and hunting gear hanging from the walls. He assumed the doors either side of the fireplace lead into the bedrooms.

The décor, if Kevin was to describe it in a word, was rustic – something out of a hunter’s daydream, not real life. There was even a rack of antlers hanging over the fireplace and the dining table looked handmade. Where furniture wasn’t covered in paisley fabric, it was the pale whorled wood of the surrounding pines, same as the interior panelling and floors. Darkened a little with time and the throes of occupation, the cabin was a little patch of paradise, welcoming and not quite real. He almost expected to see Martha Stewart in the red and black plaid of a lumberjack, whipping up an apple pie.  

He did a double take. A pie in a blue ceramic dish rested on the kitchen windowsill, sending coils of vapour through the sunlight.

He ran a hand over his head and jolted. He had hair. He _realised_ he had hair – thick locks of it that fell over his forehead. He plucked at them, stared cross-eyed, shocked.

“I’ll show you inside in a bit,” said Casey. Kevin jolted out of his daze. “Outside first, and then we can talk over pie.”

As if in a dream, he followed her to the vegetable patch and nodded as she pointed out the tomatoes and lettuces and snap peas and snow peas and it started to blur together in his mind because this wasn’t _real_ was it? His mind wasn’t actually at ease, he wasn’t really here with Casey Cooke in the cool of the woods on a beautiful summer’s day? That wasn’t his life. He, Kevin, didn’t qualify for this.

The others think he deserved peace, do they? What did that mean?

He kept playing with his hair, which he’d never had before – his mother, he thought he remembered, shaved it off when he was five because of hygiene and shampoo costs – and listening to Casey explain about hunting trips, and Joseph and David suggesting this as a refuge while they helped him heal, and the communal truck that ‘the boys’ had taken into town for dropping off the table they’d made.

“It’s been interesting finding ways to make ends meet,” she said with a wry grin. “Turns out I’m pretty good at knitting, and fresh meat always gets a good price. The vegetable patch should be making a profit in a few years and Joseph’s starting an orchard ‘round the back.”

She made it sound like a commune or something. The four of them lived off the land and the last of David and Joseph’s savings and Casey’s unorthodox inheritance from her uncle – reparations for the abuse at his hands. It would satisfy the odds and ends until they became self-sustaining, she said.

She spoke in years, long-term, with a twinkle in her eye and a spring in her step while she gazed around her kingdom of baby fruit trees, the expanse of freshly hoed earth, only a quarter of it planted, and the cabin on its plinth in the centre. A set of tyre tracks wound through the trees to the back of the house and made a circuit around the porch like a moat.

“Right,” she said. “Let’s try your pie.”

“My pie?” He matched her step for step up to the front door and let her go through first. The words came on autopilot. He was stuck on her term _they_. As in _including him_. She expected him to be around with her and ‘the boys’ for at least a few years and, if she was to be believed, it _would_ be him. Not Barry or Dennis or anyone else. Kevin Wendell Crumb had the light.

Forever.

Oh, this was terrifying.

“Hey, hey, hey,” she said, placing a hand on his shoulder and steering him to the dining table. She planted him down at the head, a book on the Crusades at his left elbow, a skein of wool and knitting needles on the chair to his right, and patted his shoulder twice. “You’re okay. It’s just you and me here.”

“That’s what I’m scared of,” he muttered. Then, “How?” he demanded, head snapping up to catch her eyes. “How did you get rid of them?”

She pursed her lips, held up a finger, and went to retrieve the pie, two waxed wood plates, and cutlery. Once they were each furnished with a slice of apple pie, the spiced, globular innards oozing out from under their crosshatched covering, she said,

“It was the others who came up with the plan. I was just the sounding board.”

“What plan? What is going on?”

She had this way of meeting his gaze that froze him to the spot, direct, full of understanding of her own importance to this world, something alien to him. “Your alters decided to integrate.”

He sucked in a breath. _No. No, no, no._

“They thought it best for you,” she continued before he could speak. “After what happened with the Horde, they agreed that you needed the light for yourself – it was the only way to keep you properly safe. They’d been trying to protect you but . . .” Casey stabbed the pie. “It went too wrong. There was nothing else to be done.”

“I don’t want them to be part of me. They killed Doctor Fletcher.”

She gripped his clenched fist, her small, slender fingers wrapping about his calloused, and held on tight. “You have to trust me. _Trust me_. I’ve met all of them and they all agreed to this. Some of them took longer than others, but they came round in the end. Their memories are waiting for you. Their personalities, their experiences, it’s all yours now. You just have to accept it. They are you.”

“They’re murderers.”

“They were hurting. You were hurting. They’ve worked through the worst of it.” She smiled. “What do you think we’ve been doing for the past six months?”

“I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can. You have nothing to fear from them.” She squeezed his fist. “Come back to reality, Kevin.”

He found the loophole. “But I can’t sense them. I don’t have their memories. It didn’t work.”

“That’s part of the plan. It’s like a version of self-hypnotism. If I say the name of the alter, it will unlock that part of your brain.”

“That’s not possible.”

At that she smirked. “If anyone should believe the impossible, it should be you, Kevin Wendell Crumb. There are twenty-one versions of yourself waiting to meet you.”

He stared at the cooling pie, too sick to touch it. His brain had been empty before, but now it was filling up with anxiety and the hot summer’s day was hotter than ever and he pulled at his collar, grimacing. Almost two dozen people lingered inside him, waiting to come out with a single word from Casey, and she expected him to be okay with this? To let her bring out the worst parts of himself, the evil, the traumatised?

No, no, no, no, _no –_

“Okay,” said Casey Cooke. “We’ll start easy. You made this pie, you know.”

“I can’t cook,” he said, words quickening, the fear setting in. “Never been able to. Mom used to –”

“– Actually, you love cooking. It’s one of the ways you relax. You were top of your class in Home Ec.”

“How you do you know that?”

“I’ve spent six months living with you. You cook our dinners most nights.”

“That wasn’t me. That was . . . whatever _person_ lives inside me. I can’t cook. Last thing I remember was seeing you in that parking lot and . . .” He groaned, ripping his hand away from her to grip his hair, fingers tightening, pulling, why did he have _hair_ now, why did nothing make sense? He was so sick of being in the dark constantly and jumping between time and place and being expected to survive – Ending it would be easier. Why didn’t she kill him when she had the chance? He’d be free now, free of all of this  . . .

A pair of lips brushed his ear and whispered, “Bernice.”

 

* * *

_“Kevin brought baking!” A rush of hands came for her, snatching the cupcakes from her plate, and she laughed and protested, “Leave one for Mrs Larraine!” and she managed to beat her way to her teacher and hand over the last of the red velvet delights._

_Mrs Larraine smiled, gap-toothed and wonderful, and took the cupcake in her wrinkled hand and bit into it. She loved baking and eating baking – “you’re too good at this, Kevin dear, I’m going to get fat one day” – and she adored her._

_“Perfect as always.”_

_“Thank you, Mrs Larraine.”_

_“We’re making apple pie today.” She winked at Bernice. “It’s my favourite. I’ve been known to give out extra points to people who get it perfect.”_

_“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Bernice._

* * *

_Her mother was in the living room, mouth gaping open, television flickering at her feet. Her father was gone. But she had a casserole dish and ingredients and an oven and she could smell the slow cooked lamb already. It would be the best meal yet, one her mother would love. The tension fled her as she peeled potatoes almost faster than her eyes could follow. Creating things with her hands that tasted delicious and brought joy to people was one of life’s greatest pleasures._

_Then she found herself blinking, her hand on the knob and the smell of gas leaking into the kitchen. She gasped and switched it off, glancing nervously over her shoulder. Mom was still asleep._

_Bernice shook herself, saying, “Odd,” and checked the temperature of the oven and put the casserole in. Then she wiped her hands on the apron and looked about the kitchen. The dirty knife, the cutting board, the vegetable scraps that needed to go in the compost, it all had to be sorted out. Time to clean._

_Then she was blinking at the dinner table, tucking into the first bite of a hearty lamb stew. Oh, that was good._

_Her mother’s eyes closed. She moaned in delight, face turned sallow by the old halogen bulb hanging overhead, her shadow monolithic on the cracking plaster wall._

_Her mother was happy. Bernice was happy. Bernice took another bite, then felt a hand on her elbow, and she blinked out of awareness._

* * *

_Bernice knew of Barry, the friendly voice in her head who encouraged her in her cooking and told her she was doing well or suggested what type of baking and dinner her mother would really enjoy. Kevin liked to please Barry, as much as she liked to please everyone._

_What Bernice didn’t like was the new kitchen in which she found herself. It was cramped and awkward and there was no oven. How was she supposed to cook properly if she couldn’t use an oven? The most she had was the microwave and small portable stove and that was it. A coffee pot too, but she’d never much been one for coffee._

_A few months of aggravated and unsuccessful cooking later, she told Barry_ , I’m done with this _and Barry sighed and said,_ All right _._

* * *

_Then Bernice was in a different kitchen and the girl was there. The girl watched her, hesitant as a deer, skittish as a lamb._

_“Bernice?” she said._

_“Yes?” said BerniceB._

_“I’m Casey.”_

_“Lovely to meet you, Casey, dear. Oh._ Oh _, what a kitchen.” Bernice put her hands together in delight. The countertop stretched along half of the wall of the house, from the front door to the corner, then turned and went another few feet to stop at the fridge. So much bench space, with appliances and sinks set level with the wood._

_A beautiful white fridge and freezer unit, retro, a rounded rectangle with big handles that had to be levered open._

_A_ new oven _, with a hob that’s steel top gleamed._

_She traced a finger over a whorl on one of the varnished benches, then ran the faucet and felt freezing, crystal clean water. She opened drawers and found cutlery for twelve and opened the cupboards anchored to the log walls and found dishes and classes and mugs. Everything was clean as a whistle and gorgeously functional._

_Two square windows looked out at winter, at its piles of snow and pine trees stripped of needles and its frozen river glinting under a sky of white._

_“Where are we?” she said._

_“The Bridger-Teton National Forest.”_

_“Oh.” Bernice padded over the sanded floorboards in knitted socks, and opened the fridge. Fresh vegetables and dairy looked back. The freezer was full of cuts of meat, bundled up in plastic bags or paper. The paper parcels had_ VENISON _scrawled over them in sharpie._

_“I shot that myself,” said Casey._

_Bernice looked over her shoulder. “What do you say to some venison stew for dinner?”_

_Casey grinned._

* * *

 

Kevin shuddered. Out the corner of his eye the fridge glinted, an old friend he hadn’t known.

He knew it now. He knew Bernice, or the part of him that had thought itself Bernice. It had been him, though, who cooked and hummed under his breath while peeling the apples for the pie and crimped the pastry around the edges of the dish and said to Casey, “That should do it. Oh. Do you think I’ll get to cook in the future?”

“Of course you will,” she’d said. “But . . . as Kevin.”

“I’m glad he’ll know how to cook at last. And do you remember everything I taught you? I don’t want you slicing off any fingers because you didn’t use that knife properly. This will be done in twenty-five minutes. Check it in twenty, just to make sure.” The oven door closed with nary a creak and under the watch of the oven’s glow, the pie started baking. “He’s going to be fine.”

Kevin remembered patting Casey’s cheek and saying, “Barry, shall we?” and Barry taking Bernice’s hand and leading her out of the light as Dennis stepped up to the plate. He saw Bernice – short, stout Bernice, who loved eating her cooking as much as making it – kissing Barry’s thin cheek and then . . . Bernice was him. He was Bernice.

He didn’t mind being Bernice.

Bit odd to fully come to grips with an entire lifetime of cooking memories and reconcile the woman’s mentality to his own. Turned out he could cook though, quite well in fact. He tasted the apple pie. It was perfect.

“Kevin?” said Casey, as he stood and went to the kitchen and went to the pantry and found the hemp potato sack in the darkness of under the bottom shelf, next to the basket of onions and garlic. He took out a potato the size of his hand, knobbly and dirty, and on his way to the sink he snatched the peeler from the second drawer on the right.

Then his large, calloused hand peeled that potato almost faster than his eyes could follow. He washed it. Put it on the bench. It gleamed, wet and off-white. The potato peelings went into the bucket under the sink for composting, joining the apple peelings and pastry scraps from earlier. The peeler he rinsed and placed in the drying rack.

Kevin rested his hands on the edge of the sink and looked out the kitchen window at a view he now recognised. The memories slotted into place as if they’d always been there and he looked forward to fixing porridge in the morning for Casey and David and Joseph, and perhaps a quiche with those eggs the boys were supposed to be bringing back for lunch.

“Kevin?” said Casey from the table.

He turned and clasped his hands over his stomach and was amused to find it dense muscle, not the pudge of Bernice.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

The kitchen was a safe place, a place of control and peace. He breathed in the smell of apple pie and said, “Good. Very good.”

“Do you want to meet another alter?”

Kevin hummed. “Can I make dinner first?”

She waved him to it and went back to eating the pie. In his mind, he had snapshots of this girl learning to cook at his side and listening to each instruction. He saw her eat his food and enjoy it. Better still, he saw her improve day by day in this place – from tired and afraid to rested and strong. Her smile was _hers_ now, not something created to put others at ease. She was flourishing here, his Casey Cooke, having come through the fire and stronger for it.

He wondered – he doubted – whether he’d be able to do the same.


	3. Mr Pritchard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet Mr Pritchard: he's not your average joe. If he had the chance, he'd wear a cowboy hat and a pocket watch and a three piece suit and grow a handlebar moustache. What he has is Kevin. Ah well. 
> 
> In which Casey agonises over change, we learn more about illegal homesteading life in Wyoming, and Kevin meets the eccentric side of his personality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TOWRTA: Sorry this took so long. It's been an . . . interesting week for me, to say the least. Anyway! Here is the chapter you've all been waiting for: bear with the introspection (deadlines mean I can't be as obsessively perfectionist as I'd like to be) but I hope some of you catch the reference at the end. Ah, Mr Pritchard. How thee amuses me. 
> 
> Enjoy reading a chapter which was REALLY hard to write. Seriously. I have angsty Casey and angsty Kevin and Joseph Dunn and The Overseer to juggle as well as the intricacies of homesteading in the middle of a Wyoming national forest, and on top of that, The Alters. Sigh . . . what have I gotten myself into? 
> 
> If they're OOC . . . let's say the last six months have been a time of growth for all involved. Et voila.

Casey heard the quiet rumble of the truck. She said, “I’m going to meet the boys.” He didn’t so much as turn around. He was too busy opening the trapdoor of the cellar, excitement in his face. She smiled, glad for him. She tried to ignore the tightening of apprehension in her chest.

They parked a foot from the back of the house in an old red Hilux covered in the accumulation of dust and dirt since last rain, two weeks ago.

Casey’s toes came level with the flatbed of the truck. On it, a tarpaulin stretched over a mound that came up to her chest, held in place by bungee cords and rope. She reached across the gap to tug at the edge of the tarp and managed to uncover a little of the haul the boys had brought in – dozens of random doors and windows, salvaged for her greenhouse. She spied steel frames and timber frames and windows that were three panes of glass in a row and windows that swung outwards on metal hinges. Green doors, red doors, brown doors, some with their paint chipping, others that were almost new. She could envision her sketches coming to life, the frames fitting together in a hodgepodge of safety for her vegetables over winter.

Kevin liked Bernice. She could begin her glasshouse. In this secluded spot on the southern slope of Taylor Valley, they never got the worst of the wind and yet had enough to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Things were looking up.

That being said, the wind whipped faster, rustling through the trees and causing the turbine to spin in the eastern gusts. It had been a quiet day, the humidity low here in the depths of the national forest. The calm before the storm, it seemed. Damn. She wanted the greenhouse erected over the vegetables before things turned sour.

The truck doors slammed open and shut and the Dunn men gazed up at the turbine too. David frowned, saying, “We better put the glass in the shed.” Joseph kept staring at the turbine. It stood on the opposite side of the house to the vegetable patch, on a set of stilts over the raised water tank. It provided power when the abundance of trees hindered the solar panels, and pumped stream water into the tank when rain couldn’t provide a top up.

David’s dad and Ranger Dan built the turbine years ago, back when David was a kid living with his mom in Philadelphia and his dad was a man who came home for winter and spent the summer up here, taking care of hiker’s huts across the forest.

It was David who mentioned Dan, his dad’s oldest friend. It was David who drove Casey and Kevin and Joseph to Jackson Wyoming, to find the one person who might be willing to help the fugitives. It was Dan who set them up here, in the middle of Wyoming winter, and kept them alive with food delivered via snowmobile. It was Dan who had kept the place in condition when it was taken off the hiker’s trail map. He let it fade out of memory of the other rangers and used it for himself as a getaway, unwittingly saving their lives.

Which meant the four of them had lived undisturbed and on Dan’s good will for nearly six months. They made it through the winter, where temperatures were always a dozen degrees below freezing. They hadn’t killed each other. They met the alters and talked everything through and Casey had a tentative hope that it was going to be okay.

Except _Kevin_ had to meet the alters. He liked Bernice, that was good. Problem was that Bernice was the easiest of the alters by far. She had no bad memories, lived to cook for people, and that was that. She didn’t have the scope of understanding of Barry or Orwell or the trauma of Dennis or B.T. or the persecutory function of Mary or Ian or Patricia. She wasn’t a fragment of feeling like Rakel or Jelin and she definitely wasn’t a representation of Kevin’s father like Goddard.

And she wasn’t the Beast.

Casey stared at the spinning turbine, the light flashing on its five blades, until it was a blur in her sight and she couldn’t see anything except the circle it cut into the atmosphere and could only hear the constant white noise of rushing air throwing itself at the pine boughs and making them dance.

This had to work. It _had_ to. The alternative was unthinkable.

“Casey!”

She jolted and saw Joseph standing on the ground by the open back door. He held a paper bag up for her to grab. She crouched and took it. “What’s in this?”

“Your stuff.”

Inside were boxes of tampons and pads, razors, antiperspirant, other bits and pieces hard to come by in a forest.

“Dad’s going to take the doors to the shed.”

Casey saw David at the wheel of the truck, his fingers tapping, bald head in silhouette to the bright – though darkening – day through the windows.

“I’ll go with him,” said Casey, and she set the paper bag down on the porch. Joseph nodded and passed her the rest of the supplies arrayed over the back seat. As she and him unloaded, David twisted, one arm resting over the backrest of the front seats. She ducked down to catch his gaze through the rear window.

“How’s he doing?” he asked.

“He’s cooking dinner.”

“He is?”

She nodded. “He took to Bernice well.”

“Does he remember us?” asked Joseph. His expression mirrored his father’s – the same frowning concern, except his eyes were that shocking deep blue.

To her private amusement, the Dunn men grew more alike every day. Living out here, having the same experiences and learning the same things day in and day out, meant they picked up each other’s mannerisms and habits, right down to wearing the same t-shirts and jeans and hiking boots, with their plaid ranger’s jackets rolled up to the elbows.

“He remembers making us meals, I think. You’ll have to introduce yourselves.”

They nodded and Joseph collected an armful of the paper bags full of dairy products and soap and toilet paper while Casey got into the passenger side of the truck. David turned the key, threw the gear, and they trundled through the trees to the shed. The woodworking shed was not so much a shed as a barn, built far enough from the main cabin that the table saw wouldn’t disturb. Two-storeys tall, filled with more tools than any of the newcomers knew what to do with, and warm and dry year-round, it quickly became David’s hideout when he couldn’t deal with Kevin.

Casey had come to love David, she really had. And she understood that it was hard for him to look past the Beast. Didn’t mean it didn’t frustrate her, though. His son spent hours chatting with Barry or Dennis or Orwell, fascinated by Kevin’s special brand of DID.

Meanwhile, David built cabinetry for friends of Ranger Dan.

“Who’s he meeting next?” asked David as he reversed to the shed door.

“I was thinking Samuel.” She got out and set to work unhooking the bungee cords and untying the ropes while David rolled up the shed door. The smell of varnish and sawdust billowed out. Inside, skylights in the curving roof lit upon floating dust and chunks of castoff wood and benches covered in half-finished projects – door knobs and drawers and even a canoe.

The other half of the shed was their storage space for the snowmobiles and gasoline and spare batteries and extra hunting gear. Casey picked up the smallest of the windows – a white-framed square as big as her torso – and carried it to a bare stretch of wall. 

David grabbed a massive door and followed. “Sam’s the one that reads, isn’t it?”

“He acts as Orwell’s informant.”

“You know it will get harder. The others aren’t easy.”

“I know.”

“Have you got a plan?” 

“Joseph and Barry helped me.” _That’s pretty_. She had him help her with a long, thin window made of stained glass in the pattern of a rose. They leaned it up against a mullioned door.

“You gonna tell me?” he asked. David had one of the most expressive faces Casey had ever seen. Right now, he was going for pursed lips, semi-blank eyes, trying not to pry but also not taking no for an answer. Casey had seen it many times.

Casey was used to keeping secrets, not sharing everything she did with other people. She didn’t mean to be elusive – it had been her life for so long, white lies, cover ups, subject changes, that she had to check herself on occasion. Like now. She thought she’d told him. Apparently not.

David Dunn wasn’t Uncle John, she reminded herself. She could trust him.

“I want to set up a strong foundation with Bernice and Ansel and Norma. You know, find the good memories to fall back on when it gets hard.”

He grunted and lifted a door over his head, trekking along the path they’d made in the dust. “So you’re not introducing him to the Beast tomorrow?” He heaved the door – mahogany frame, the heaviest of the lot – against the rest.

She glanced at him. He was smirking. She smiled.

“I thought I’d leave him until last, just an idea. I’ll need your help. Hopefully things won’t be too difficult but . . .”

David set the last of the windows in place and turned to her. “Happy to,” he said. Then he frowned. “But get him to meet the men too. He _is_ a guy.”

She sighed. “That’s the problem. His male alters are . . .” She shrugged. “Luke’s not bad. But how will he deal with Hedwig or B.T.?” _Or Dennis?_

He thought, then a light went on and he said, smirking, “What about Mr Pritchard?”

* * *

Joseph was describing some movie or other. Kevin looked bewildered. “He was dead the whole time?”

“Yup.”

“And no one guessed?”

“It’s common knowledge now. If you see the film without knowing, though, it’s like,” Joseph mimed his head exploding.

Casey shucked her shoes inside the front door, while David leaned in, meeting his son’s eyes. “Storm’s brewing,” he said. “Help me get the covering over the vegetables.”

“Cool. I’ll explain the rest later,” he told Kevin, and he trotted after David with a brief pause to offer Casey a fist bump – a ritual he had started on a whim and then kept up because it amused him.

For her part, she loved it.

The front door shut. The Dunn men chatted, footsteps stomping on the porch and then thumping over dirt and grass, visible from the living room. She could call for them if she needed to. She was safe.

Birdsong came through the open kitchen window, and a gust through it blew the scent of Kevin’s cooking venison towards her. Uncle John used to cook venison like that, cubed, browning it for a stew because his father had made it the same way. Except Uncle John did it on the barbecue while Kevin made do with the skillet on the gas hob.

Kevin’s dazed, scared face was a little less scared, a little more in control, as he made sure each side of the meat was brown before taking it off the heat and placing it on a plate and tossing chopped onions and carrots into the fonde.

Casey tried not to be scared by how much he’d taken on of Bernice. What would he become of Mary Reynolds or Ian or Patricia?

Casey gripped her forearm to hold herself in place. _It’s going to be okay. We planned for all this. It'll be fine._

Still, Casey wasn’t looking forward to her world changing again.

In the past six months, she’d grown used to their oddball family. She started off so, so afraid of being stuck in this cabin in the woods with only three other men for company. She knew the horror stories, she’d lived them, and for the first month she slept with her bedroom door locked and made sure nothing stood between her and it when in the living areas. Fleeing into nature wasn’t possible – beyond the cabin's patch of relative quiet, where the earth was warmed by a nearby hot spring, Taylor Valley was cruel in winter and a long way from civilisation.

Hiding her fear – she was good at that – she was polite to everyone and watched everything. She swapped comic book stories with Joseph. She listened to David talk about his wife on rare evenings. She admired the bond between father and son.

Somewhere along the way, she grew to love them.

It might have started when Joseph told her, solicitous and a little embarrassed, that he’d followed the events of her uncle’s trial and he never wanted to give her another reason to hate men.

She hugged him for that. It was the first voluntary hug she’d given since the Beast, and before that, her father.

David and her were less touchy-feely, more he’d give her a thumb’s up and a pat on the back and make sure her knitting was on the side table for her in the morning if she’d left it somewhere else the night before.

Kevin . . . well. She appreciated each alter for Kevin’s sake, but some she liked more than others.

Like Barry. She cried when he told her today, “We’re still here, okay? Baby girl, listen to me now, it’s going to be fine. Kevin is going to love you.”

And she sobbed more because _she loved Barry too._ And Hedwig and Norma and even _Dennis_ , whom she told herself she could never love because of what he’d done to Marcia and Claire.

(One day she and Dennis were stripping logs for the wood pile and he said something about needing an antiseptic bath – while standing in a plaid shirt and jeans and looking every inch the lumberjack with his short hair – and it made her laugh for the first time in weeks. He cracked this smile so hesitant it almost broke her heart.)

This could go so, so wrong. Her family, her tentative, fragile family was changing, and there was no going back. She could do this. He deserved to know who he was and the lives he’d lived.

Half a year’s worth of hair flopped over Kevin Wendell Crumb’s forehead, wavy brown curls struck through by premature grey.

“Do you want to meet another alter?” she asked.

Kevin’s shoulders tensed. He tossed the onions into the red stew pot and added the stock and the rest of the vegetables and the meat. With care, he stirred it up and put it into the oven.

“Do I have to?” he asked.

“When you’re ready.”

“You didn’t give me much of a choice the last time,” he said.

Casey’s fingers tightened around her forearm to the point where the knuckles went white and her tendons started shifting out of the way beneath her fingertips. Couldn’t they leave it like this? Him having Bernice as his cornerstone and building himself from there?

No. It wouldn’t be fair to him, not when other parts of him protected his sanity and his life for years on end so that he could survive. They deserved recognition too.

Besides. She wanted to see Barry someday.

“This guy’s a detective,” she offered, raising her hand in a jerky wave at the air and dropping it just as quick. “Sit down and I’ll – uh – tell you about him.” She gestured again, this time at the living area.

Kevin untied the apron embroidered with peonies and moved out of his safety net in the kitchen. Away from the cupboards and fridge, he seemed out of place. Uncomfortable in himself. He moved to stand in front of the fireplace, picked up a poker, and started shifting the ashes about. Then he paused. Then he knelt.

“Does this look into the bedrooms?”

Casey nodded. “Yeah. So much for privacy, huh?”

The metal cube of a fireplace squatted in the centre of the house. It had a glass-fronted door on the living room side. On the other, two little viewing windows, with a panel of metal separating them. If you squinted through the dirty, ash-stained glass, you could see bunk beds and piles of clothes.

The bedroom doors were on either side of the fireplace – labelled with a carved stag and a carved doe respectively. Inside were four bunkbeds and no windows except in the corner where the dividing wall met that metal cube. The portholes of the fireplace glowed, warm and flickering, keeping sleeping hikers toasty in the cold nights. The glass couldn’t be opened, it was too thick to crack, and the angle made it impossible to see into one bedroom from the other.

Still, Casey made sure she went to bed at the same time as the men.

As Casey skirted the dining room table and went to curl up on the paisley couch before the fireplace, Kevin sat back on the bearskin rug and took in the rest of the cabin. His eyes went up to the rafters where dried herbs hung and the antler chandelier was unlit, then to the array of guns and bows over the walls.

Casey said, “That’s the bathroom through there.” He looked at the door at the end of the cabin. “We have a composting toilet and a hot shower. Just don’t use the tap if someone’s in there. There’s a cast iron tub out by the shed if you want a fire bath. We keep firewood under the porch and a stash by the front door in case and the rest is by the shed. Ammunition is in that chest, arrows in the quiver by the window, you can use any of the weapons. I keep them clean. The beartraps and things are in the shed. Gloves and coats stay by the front door in the wardrobe, and we take our shoes off when inside because otherwise cleaning is a nightmare. De – one of your alters made that rule. . .”

Kevin had stood up. He dithered, until Casey patted the cushion next to her. He sat down and, apparently without thinking, raised up his arm for her to curl into his side. She did.

They both froze.

“Uh,” said Kevin.

Casey jerked away. “Sorry. Reflex. Ba – B and I used to sit like that.”

He resettled, further from her, and asked her sidelong, “What now?”

Casey took pity on him – how could she not? – and she took his hand in hers and rubbed a thumb over his knuckles. “It’s going to be okay. This next guy is fun, you’ll like him.”

“What’s he like?”

“He’s a detective who teaches kids how to protect themselves. We think you based him off an old television show.” She hesitated. “He’s intense.”

* * *

_The new alter – Mr Pritchard – took on Kevin’s face. The first thing he said was: “Street smarts!”_

_Joseph started to laugh. “It’s Bittenbinder!”_

_Casey stared at him. “Who?”_

_Mr Pritchard dove into a thorough investigation of the cabin, staring at the locks on the doors and the placements of the rifles and shotguns and checking the faucets for water. He mumbled things like, “Isolated location . . . no one to hear a scream . . . good upkeep on weaponry . . . where’s the car?” in a thick Chicago accent and stroked around his mouth as if he had a moustache – he didn’t. Kevin kept cleanshaven for the sake of the female alters._

_Joseph kept laughing. “He’s a detective from the nineties who taught kids how to avoid being attacked. They made us watch him in class. He taught us to carry fifty dollar notes in money clips.”_

_“Why?”_

_David, Joseph, and Casey watched Mr Pritchard kneel, stick his head into the fireplace, and stare up the chimney. He withdrew and told David with absolute seriousness, “No one’s coming down there.”_

_David said, “Sure hope not.”_

_Mr Pritchard saw the cellar door. He near sprinted over to it._

_Joseph leaned closer and whispered, “If you’re being mugged, you throw the money clip in the opposite direction so you can get away.”_

_“Does that work?”_

_Joseph shrugged. “Dad wouldn’t let me try.”_

_“It wasn’t like you had fifty dollars spare lying around,” David shot back._

_The trapdoor crashed into its frame. Mr Pritchard strode up to the three of them and declared, “This house might be secure but what’s on the other side? Danger! Death! Disease! You’ve got to watch out for every predator! They’re out there!”_

_Casey looked at the snow piled up higher than the porch and raised an eyebrow. The blizzard raged on._

_“What are you gonna do if that oven starts leaking carbon monoxide?” Mr Pritchard demanded._

_They exchanged glances. “Open a window,” David offered._

_“But then the temperature in here will drop below zero faster than you can say frostbite. What are you gonna do then?”_

_“Turn off the oven and close the window,” Joseph suggested._

_“But that carbon monoxide could be coming from a leaking pipe.”_

_“We’ve got duct tape,” said Casey._

_“What if you’re all out of duct tape?” and so it went for the next two hours. Mr Pritchard quizzed and demanded and offended and the three of them tried not to laugh because the day before they’d been listening to Ansel serenading Casey with badly thought-up lyrics._

_Mr Pritchard paced back and forth, hands flying about him, explaining the dangers of the world, humanity’s depravity, and why they should fear for their lives in every situation._

_Then David grabbed the metal poker beside the fireplace and bent it in half and dropped it at Mr Pritchard’s feet._

_Mr Pritchard gaped._

_Mr Pritchard proceeded to challenge David to an arm wrestle, which he lost._

_Thus there was an opening for David, Joseph, and Casey to get Mr Pritchard into the armchair and explain the situation of Kevin Wendell Crumb – and also the Dunn boys’ old job as home security retailers. Mr Pritchard looked at David in grudging respect._

_Three months and many conversations – and quizzes on how to be safe on the streets despite the fact that there wasn’t a street to be seen for miles – later, Mr Pritchard said, “I’d be glad to teach Kevin how to take care of himself. This kid needs my help. Mr Dunn, it’s been a pleasure knowing someone so knowledgeable about safety,” and he shook their hands, solemnly stroked his non-existent moustache one last time, and went out of the light with Barry guiding his way._

_David said, “I think I’m going to miss him.”_

* * *

“Okay. Say his name,” said Kevin.

“Mr Pritchard.”

Kevin blinked.

Kevin’s general aura went from hesitant to _Street Smart!_

“Have you been listening to what I taught you?” he demanded of Casey. “Did you get that padlock for your door?” He jumped to his feet and darted about the cabin checking the locks and cupboards and the ammunition store. He checked the oven pipe that led to the autogas canister – he took a moment to open the oven door and breathe in the aroma of simmering stew with approval – and he peered into the cellar.

He stood in front of Casey, hands on hips, and demanded, “Has David been taking care of you? Are you all safe? Did anyone come to the cabin who wasn’t meant to? Remember what I said about your legs being stronger than your arms. Kicking is always the smarter option. You’ve been practicing loading the shotgun, right?

She speared him with a deadpan look. “Want me to show you?”

Kevin snapped out of it with a sudden shake of his head. He whistled, which he’d never done before. “What on earth?” he breathed. “Why Mr Pritchard?”

“You saw his training videos and internalised them. Like a safety mechanism.”

 “He terrified me as a kid.”

Casey grinned. “He terrified us too.”

Kevin started to say ‘sorry’, then he saw her grin, picked up the nearest paisley pillow and lobbed it at her. She kicked it out of the air.

“Check it,” she giggled. “You taught me well.”

He groaned, rubbing his forehead, and muttered, “I’m going to check on dinner.”

A little of the shrewdness stayed behind, sharpening his gaze. He took a moment to touch the slightly bent poker and chuckled under his breath. “Street smarts, huh?”

Casey hugged the thrown pillow to her chest.

There weren’t many ‘easy’ alters left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTW: if anyone had a personality/trait they really want to see in one of the alters, let me know! I've come up with rudimentary ideas for each of them but this is a collaborative platform and I'm intrigued to see what is possible if we put our heads together. *shrugs* Just a thought. 
> 
> Until next time (hopefully sooner than last). 
> 
> TOWRTA.


	4. Samuel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet Samuel, he's a bookworm.
> 
> (In which we have sentences such as 'I ate people', 'You can't win, Patricia', and 'One of them tried to drown you? Those are people who want you out of the way. Cops don't do that.')

Kevin was at a dinner table. An honest to God dinner table, with other people seated around it. He knew this wasn’t his first time at said table – Bernice sat here many a time with Casey and the Dunns – but it was new to him. He remembered passing the salt to David a few nights before. Tonight, when he did it again, it was like the first time and the hundredth.

It was beyond odd.

When Kevin used to examine his mess of a mind, he saw himself as being one thread in a web of many. His strand was thin and wispy, hardly stronger than spider silk. The other consciousnesses were dense, thick bands roping them in place. He fluttered with the passing wind, they remained unmoved. Their anchored presence weighed heavily in the back of his mind, stable where he was weak.

Now he felt like a pool, with water being added to the little puddle at the bottom. The water mixed and sloshed and then settled into stillness as a cool pond of memories and sensations that belonged to him.

He had control, complete and irrevocable. He was himself at last.

The sensation was heady.

“The storm will come in tonight,” David was saying. When Kevin looked at David, he remembered that the man loved salt and pepper on everything and was the purveyor of Dunn Security and a man to be reckoned with. “You fixed up that gutter, right?”

“Yup,” said Joe.

Joseph Dunn. Apparent pop culture fiend and once-technology expert of the Dunn Security company. He often complained about the satellite phone’s lack of data, the lack of Wi-Fi for his laptop, the lack of everything technology based. He loved porridge.

“I should get the fire started,” said Casey.

Ah, Casey. The memories of her sparked bright. She was more real than anything else. She thanked him for dinner – he absently said, “No problem,” – and went to rinse her empty bowl in the sink and set it aside for washing with the rest. He tracked her to the fireplace, chin in hand, watched her use the bent poker to push aside the ashes.

 _“Will you stay in the light with me – for a little awhile?”_ His precious, unfiltered memories were few and far between. He held onto them with both hands and kept them polished to a shine. His was a sparse mental landscape, with the vague image of his mother and the few conversations with Doctor Fletcher as she explained what was happening to him and the bus ride where everything went dark for too long.

Having integrated Bernice and Mr Pritchard, Kevin suddenly realised just how much he was missing. He had an entire life – thirty-one years of it – that he didn’t know about.

“What did you think of Mr Pritchard?” asked Joseph. Kevin snapped to attention.

“Huh?”

“Mr Pritchard,” he repeated.

Kevin swallowed a chunk of tender venison. “I can’t believe I internalised him. He made me think I was going to be murdered before I turned ten.”

“I liked him,” said David.

“You would,” Joe quipped.

“Man after my own heart.”

“How did you bend the poker?” asked Kevin.

David raised his eyebrows. “You don’t remember?”

Joe nudged his dad. “”Course he wouldn’t.”

David pushed away from the table and looked about the place. Casey spoke up from the fireplace in a rush, “Don’t break anything!” David waved her off and went to the fridge. He wrapped his arms around as much of it as he could.

 _No way,_ thought Kevin.

David grunted and heaved. A thick caterpillar of a vein writhed under the skin of his forehead. His face turned red.

And the fridge – _impossibly_ – lifted a few inches off the ground.

_What?_

Kevin wondered if he hadn’t slipped off the rails of reality completely. This cabin in the woods might be part of a long hallucination. He would wake up in that cell with the light show around the door soon and Casey would be there and he wouldn’t remember anything.

Or this was real, and the world was a bit madder than he’d thought.

“Nice,” Joe whispered.

The fridge thumped down to the ground with a crash and Kevin winced, thinking of the jars and containers rattling inside.

“How much was that?” asked Joe.

David stretched, returning to his seat at the table. “’Bout four hundred.”

Joe raised a hand. His dad rolled his eyes, then high fived him.

“How is that possible?” Kevin asked, not quite believing it just happened.

“What if I said you could do the same,” said David.

“What?”

Joe leaned over the cooling dregs in his bowl. “One of your alters is as strong as my dad.”

Over the young man’s shoulder, Casey tensed, glancing at them through her hair. That set Kevin on edge more than Joe’s comment.  

David nodded his agreement. “He threw a table like this at me.” He knocked the wood with his knuckles. Kevin leaned back in his chair, taking in the massive table that could seat at least ten.

“How could I do that? Why would I?”

“We had an interesting first meeting.”

“Is this to do with that hospital?”

“Sort of.”

“How did I get there?” Without warning, the questions that had lingered, unvoiced, came crashing through and Kevin was almost submerged by them – Who are these people? Why am I here? How do I know these men? Why are we in Wyoming?

Kevin got snapped into one of his new memories.

* * *

 

_“Who are you? Why am I here? How do we know each other? What’s going on?” demanded Mr Pritchard._

_“I’m Casey, this is David, that’s Joseph, and . . . you’re an alternate personality of Kevin.”_

_“What?”_

_The explanation was long, involving names and dates and a difficult time convincing Mr Pritchard that no_ _this wasn’t the nineties, he wasn’t a detective, he wasn’t in danger._

_“That doesn’t answer my questions,” he spat. “How do we know each other? Why am I here? What’s going on.” He shot the questions at them like bullets from a gun, aiming to punch into their flesh and remain until they could be dug out with the right details._

_Those details, as they happened to be, involved the Horde, the Beast, cannibalism, a man named Mr Glass, and a video put online of the Beast and The Overseer which had the four of them banding together to vanish from society. Ranger Dan came into it, and at one point Barry revealed himself to prove that Mr Pritchard wasn’t alone in Kevin’s body. Whenever a alter's name came up, Joseph was the one to say it._

_Mr Pritchard crossed his arms and said, “These people don’t sound like regular cops. A sniper, you said? And one of them tried to drown you? Those are people who want you out of the way. Cops don’t do that.”_

_The three of them laughed him off. Mr Pritchard, though, was convinced. He knew danger, and their story reeked of a different sort than normal._

_He’d let them laugh. Kevin could investigate further if need be._

* * *

Kevin got up, ran to the bathroom, and hurled chunks of tender venison and brown stew into the toilet.

Hands were on his shoulders, a girl was talking in his ear.

All he heard was, “ _The Beast ate young girls as part of a ritual.”_

“I ate people,” he rasped. He vomited again. “I _ate_ people.”

And then came the thoughts, ones of a different colour to his usual bleak monologue. They told him, _oh, dearie, it’s going to be okay,_ and _The Beast was a monster. You’re not. Get up and get strong so you can fight him down_ and _you weren’t in your right mind, we’re going to make sure it never happens again_.

Slowly, Kevin came to hear what Casey was saying to him, a constant delicate stream of, “We won’t let that happen again. We’re going to help you, Kevin. You aren’t him. It’s going to be fine.”

 Her expressive brown eyes were inches from his and they showed genuine love, actual compassion, emotions that shouldn’t be possible to give someone who had kidnapped and tried to eat you.

Who was this girl and what did he do to have her care for him?

“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” And he began to cry.

* * *

When Kevin was strong enough – relative term – Casey left him to use one of his twenty-two toothbrushes and regain his equilibrium. She closed the bathroom door, leaned on it, and thought, _At least he knows now._

“Uh,” said Joseph. He and his father stood by the front door. “Is he okay?”

She sighed. “Maybe.”

“We’re going to lock the truck in the shed before it gets any worse out there.”

Casey noticed the rain for the first time. It must have come while she was in the bathroom. It rattled down on the tin roof and flashed in the light of the windows as it crashed into the glass. The drops trickled down the pane, blurring the dark trees on the other side that bent and shivered in the gales. Thunder rumbled in the distance, a slow roll far away. A violent night threatened.

“Be careful,” she offered. David took it with a grim smile and the two of them dove into the maelstrom. The front door banged shut. Casey suddenly shivered. The temperature gauge read fifty-five. When had that happened?

Soon enough, crackling flames joined the chorus of the storm and the bathroom door creaked open. A pale-faced, shivering man emerged, his arms wrapped around himself to keep him from falling to pieces.

Casey turned her face from the flames and felt the coolness of the rest of the cabin against her cheek. She held up a book. “I thought you might want to read. Dan brought it up last week.”

He shook his head, shuffling over to sit on the bearskin hearthrug and lean his back against the armchair. Three feet of space separated him from Casey on the couch.  

Norma, one of the other alters, loved French braids and was good at them. They’d spent evenings together, Casey sitting between her knees, lulled into a doze by the feeling of fingers running through her hair.

Seeing Kevin, holding himself with unnatural rigidity, a bowstring ready to snap, it was as if months of friendship were gone. Vanished. Blown far out of Casey’s reach, to be remembered but not touched. She felt a lump in her throat and forced herself to be reasonable. Mere minutes ago, he learned he had an alter that was a cannibalistic serial killer trying to eat people who hadn’t suffered. Give the guy a break.

She said, “You have an alter who loves reading. He’s a fragment who the others would call on when they needed to focus on something. He’s good at, um, forgetting about the world for a bit.”   

“Does he do anything else?” he whispered. The vomit must have stripped his throat raw.

“Just reads. It’s like his special talent. I’ve seen him read whole books in half a day.”

Kevin rubbed his eyes and breathed deeply, hands covering his face. His voice cracked on the words as he said, “All right. What’s his name?”

“Samuel,” she replied, and she handed him the book. He took it and read the dust jacket and leaned against the armchair.

His expression went from horror-struck to the near-blank focus of someone buried in a book. She could almost see the world slipping off his shoulders as the cabin and the storm and the Beast faded into background noise. Nothing mattered except the pages under his fingertips and the words that explained the rampant drug use of soldiers and civilians in Nazi Germany.

* * *

Kevin wouldn’t look up from the book for two hours. Samuel had a sort of internal timer on him for how long he focused for. Joseph used a stopwatch one long Saturday when the weather kept them indoors and counted one hundred and twenty minutes to the second. When those minutes were up, Samuel would close the book, look around, ask, _“Does anyone need anything?”_ and if the answer was No, he’d return to the book and read for another two hours.

So Casey felt safe in leaving Kevin to himself as she went to do the dishes, humming the song Ansel wrote for her last time he was around. It was mostly about her hair and cheekbones. At least the tune was pretty.

She reached the line that went, _And when the wind traces over the sweet length of her neck_ , and paused to grimace because, well, hopefully Ansel didn’t intend it to sound the way it did, or maybe it was simply the revelations of the night that made her read into it the wrong way, when she heard a gentle, “How quaint.”

Casey knew that voice.

Any idea of Casey regaining her good mood tonight was sucked into a black hole.

As quiet as a doe, she put down the dishes and crept to the edge of the kitchen. She spied Kevin’s dark hair over the armrest of the chair. He was in same position as before, on the floor, leaning against the armchair, the book open in his hands. Except . . .

He looked to the side and she saw his profile. His tranquil expression was thrown into ghastly relief of shadow and firelight.

“Hello, Casey dear,” said Patricia.

_Oh, please, not now._

“How did you –” her voice broke. She swallowed and tried again. “How did you get into the light?” She remained where she was, taking a chance to glance into the kitchen where the knife drawer was. Maybe she could get there fast enough . . . but Patricia was closer to the shotgun above the fireplace. Casey didn’t stand a chance.

Patricia smiled, thin-lipped. Below the neck, Kevin’s body was frozen. “Barry gave up control, remember? And Kevin’s a bit shaken at the moment, which gave me a lovely little opportunity to slip into the light while he’s concentrating on other things. I’m disappointed you haven’t called me out. I was waiting for our chat.”

 _I’ve been waiting for you to die_. “What do you want?”

“To remind you, my dear. I heard what you said to the boy, about not letting it happen again. About it ‘being okay.’ Hmm, you might have convinced the rest to go along with your little farce, but He and I remain pure. You cannot corrupt us.”

The woman’s condescending compassion set her teeth on edge. “You won’t win, Patricia. Kevin is only going to get stronger and he’ll be able to get rid of you and the Beast.”

“Oh? Your dear Kevin will succeed where Barry and all the others failed, will he? Well. I have news for you, Casey. Your little scheme has made the Beast angry with you. He’s not going to be so lenient when he returns. You and that David Dunn will be slaughtered and all the impure too. He is your reckoning. He is a god among men.”

“Kevin Wendell Crumb.”

Patricia threw her head back and laughed and yet the rest of her stayed frozen in place, her hands holding the pages of the book in mid-air. “That stopped working when you set up that trick with Barry and Hedwig, and they aren’t here anymore to reverse it. You can call the alters out but not him. Oh, Casey. Sooner or later, you have tosay my name to him and I will take control. I will bring out the Beast, and those two men you love so much will be dead before you know it. Until next time.” She smirked and bowed her head to the pages.

 Casey stood, frozen, heart pounding, breath shallow, for more than a minute, watching for any sign of the horrible alter. Nothing came. Kevin turned a page.

She couldn’t take it. She darted forward and placed her hands on either side of Kevin’s face. He frowned and, with agonising slowness, dragged his focus from the book and aimed it at her. Those blue eyes blinked. Patricia’s unnatural peace was nowhere to be seen.

“Casey?” he asked. “Casey, what’s wrong?”

She choked on a sob, hand to her mouth. “Nothing.” Another sob. “Nothing’s wrong.”

Kevin set the book aside and reached for her.

She wanted to flinch. She wanted to hide in her bedroom and lock the door and get as far away from the Beast and Patricia as she could.

But this was about Kevin, not her, so she let him pull her into his arms, even though all she could think about was the Beast taking over and crushing the light out of her. Face buried in the shoulder of his t-shirt, Casey tried not to scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TOWRTA: *GASP* Is this plot I see? :O This is going to be fascinating, isn't it? The thing that kept Casey from truly fearing the Beast was that she was 'pure' in his eyes and untouchable. Now that's gone . . . let the angst begin. Mwahaha


	5. Rakel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By mistake, Casey brings out one of the most painful alters within him. Meet Rakel: Kevin's coping strategy created in the darkest moments. 
> 
> “Honouring all ways we survived our childhood abuse is healing. We were amazing and courageous.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here be the universal trigger warning for this story: Kevin and Casey have not had good lives. Their trauma will be discussed, not in gory detail but explained enough that you understand what was done to them. (Note I say done TO them. They are both victims, let us make this clear.)

Casey spent the night tossing and turning, unable to sleep. The storm pounded the log cabin, trying to hammer its way through the trunks of the walls and the tin on the roof. By the deafening noise she thought it might succeed.

Alone in her bunk room, with the warm red glow of embers coming in from the fireplace’s porthole, she wished for Barry. Smart, safe Barry who always knew what to do. She wanted him with her, to sit at the end of her bed and call her ‘Baby girl’ and tell her she could do this. She wasn’t alone. Patricia and the Beast wouldn’t win.

Thunder crashed through the valley, echoing off the slopes and rolling through the trees. It seemed impossible that the cabin should survive.

Casey rolled on her side, hugged her pillow, and waited for the night to end.

* * *

One wall over, Kevin couldn’t sleep either.

He had a monster inside him. One that killed Doctor Fletcher and tried to eat Casey and had eaten who knew how many other young girls like her. Sweet, innocent girls whose only crime was being kept safe from people like his mother.

Kevin couldn’t look away from the burning circle in the corner of the room. The coals tumbled in a shower of sparks and for a brief second he thought he saw a girl’s face, screaming.

He rolled to face the wall and tried to tune into David’s quiet breath and Joseph’s snoring but Mr Pritchard’s conversation kept replaying and he didn’t know how to stop it. _Beast. Cannibal. Impure. Beast. Cannibal. Impure._

_Conspiracy._

What?

He grabbed onto the thought like a lifeline. Someone had tried to kill him – which he understood – and David – which made less sense. David Dunn helped people. Why would anyone want to kill him?

He had knowledge garnered from hundreds of books and Mr Pritchard’s shrewd understanding that the world was dangerous. He’d read about conspiracy theories come true, like the CIA’s MKUltra plan and the psychic spy units of the US military. He knew about the Bilderberg Group. He knew that powerful people could get away with anything using money and anonymity and people’s willingness to say, ‘No way, that’s ridiculous.’

People had tried to kill him and David Dunn and disguised themselves as a regular SWAT team to do it. Kevin wondered if they’d done it before, to others like him and David. David couldn’t be the only unbreakable man in existence, and yet Kevin couldn’t find mention of one in Samuel’s knowledge. Samson in the Bible was it, and his destruction was Delilah, not a SWAT team.

Unless she was part of this too.

An _ancient_ conspiracy _._ Could it be? Mr Pritchard thought so, and Kevin didn’t want to fall off this train of thought back into the mire of _Beast. Cannibal. Impure._

Then the question was: with the four of them tucked up in their little valley cabin, how long before they were tracked down and taken out, without anyone being the wiser?

* * *

The storm had blown over, leaving the world freshly cleaned and dripping. Lodgepole pines, heavy with cones, sagged under the weight of themselves and the water. Below their limbs the rain continued to fall to the grass and moss and needles surrounding their roots.

Sunshine, the earliest riser in the valley’s summer months, meandered between the slopes. Being in an east-west direction, Taylor Valley got the sun all day long. Moose and elk and bighorn sometimes flocked to the valley from Jackson Hole and spent their days plodding about the woods, mostly ignoring each other and enjoying a moment’s peace until they next found themselves trapped in a hunter’s crosshair.

Bears rarely came to Taylor Valley. The forest ranger Daniel Matheson couldn’t explain it. It must be an act of God, he supposed, a sanctuary for His deer, like New Zealand was His bird sanctuary before He let the Maori in.

That day in late June, the birds jumped and dove and soared around, singing to each other and flitting about in the warmth of that sun, sometimes ducking below the trees where the air was cool and glowing. Where the hot spring stream tipped off the edge and plunged in a cascade of calcium-filled foam into the lake, osprey hunched on the rocks, watching, waiting for the cutthroat trout and whitefish and mackinaw that drifted along the peripheries of the current. A single bald eagle, far from home, held court from a jutting clifftop and gave its squeaking call, looking for an unlikely mate. 

Joseph Dunn, for once, was the first one awake in the cabin. He dragged himself off his bunk, groaned, noted Kevin sleeping with his back to the room and blankets twisted around him, then padded into the kitchen. The restocked pantry and cellar yielded oatmeal and bananas and apples and yoghurt and Joseph went through the motions of chopping and stewing and scooping spoonfuls of the Greek yoghurt on top at the end. Fifteen minutes all up, he trudged out onto the porch, sat down, and tried to wake himself up with Bernice’s favourite breakfast treat. The crisp air went to his brain and managed to kick it into a semblance of speed.

 _Coffee,_ he remembered at last. _Coffee wakes people up._

He heard a kettle boiling and the scrape of a metal filter being dragged out of a French press. Through the kitchen window was the top of Casey’s head. Her hair was in a ponytail for once.

 _Crunch._ That was the mortar and pestle on the coffee beans. Joseph didn’t know where they sourced the coffee beans from in Jackson, Wyoming, but they tasted heavenly and made a drink as black as oil.

She came out with two steaming mugs and her plate of buttered toast and sat next to him. Their legs swung in rhythm over the porch’s side, brushing honeysuckle. He grunted his thanks and took a long slurp. Now if he had Wi-Fi and a computer, this would be the life.

Crunching toast and the scraping of Joseph’s spoon joined the chorus of the wild.

Belatedly – everything was belated for Joseph Dunn this early in the morning – he realised he was wearing his flannel pyjama pants and nothing else. Casey was already dressed for the day, the clever girl.

Sighing, he clambered up, went inside, and came out with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He picked up his coffee cup. The breakfasting continued.

From day one in the cabin, Joe learned of Casey’s aversion to men. He couldn’t blame her – if he had an aunt like her uncle, he’d probably run screaming every time he saw a woman. As it was, he and his father, without talking it over, both made every effort to put her at ease. They gave her space, they didn’t touch her for weeks, they tried to be everything her Uncle John wasn’t. They tried to be the family she’d been robbed of.

It worked well, perhaps a little too well, because now he and Casey’s relationship was strictly platonic, bordering siblings, and she didn’t so much as bat an eyelid when he came out of the shower in a towel. Not that he wanted a relationship with her, per se, not when it was him, her, Kevin, and his _dad_ stuck together in this cabin for maybe ever. It’d be nice to be noticed, that’s all. He never had a girlfriend and there was little chance of him getting one here.

For maybe ever. Without Internet. Without girls. Without being his dad’s Alfred.  

He sighed.

He slurped his coffee and sighed again when he felt the gritty dregs on his tongue.

“How’s Kevin?” he asked.

Casey twitched. He turned to her and saw the dark circles under her eyes and the grey cast to her skin. She clutched the coffee mug in a death grip.

“Are you okay?”

She shook her head, glanced inside. The men’s bunkroom was closed. His dad would be up soon, and who knew when Kevin would awake.

In a whisper, Casey said, “Patricia came out last night.”

Joe gaped.

“Barry never took her away. She’s still in him, waiting. She said if I say her name she’ll take over Kevin and release the Beast.”

“You stopped the Beast, though. You can do it again.”

She shook her head, ponytail whipping about her shoulders. “Not this time. Apparently he isn’t happy with me for integrating Kevin. He’s going to kill all of us if he gets out.”

The beauty of the day took on an evil edge. Among the tweeting and the rustling and the golden sunlight, insects were being eaten, fish ripped from the lake, elk trekking too far from safety and being shot through the chest and watched as they flailed and died.

For maybe ever got a whole lot shorter.

Crap.

He didn’t want to get eaten by Kevin.

“What do we do?” she said.

“I don’t know,” he replied.

Another check inside. “I wish Barry was here.”

“Why don’t you bring him out?”

“I can’t. He has memories of the abuse. I don’t want to put Kevin through that yet.”

“You have to sometime.”

“I know.” She looked so lost, so stricken. He and David had arrived back at the cabin that night to find Kevin and Casey side by side, reading. They seemed calm enough, if a little harrowed by Kevin’s revelation. Kevin said he needed some time to come to grips with what he’d done but was willing to keep bringing out the other alters. Casey showered and went to bed at the same time as the men and it had been . . . normal.

With Kevin not there, the fear wrote itself across her features, plain as day for Joe to read. Acting on impulse, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tucked her into his side, cloaking her in half the blanket. Being a big brother wasn’t so bad.

“Who were you thinking of next?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she murmured. “I don’t know what to do. We had them all planned out but now, with Patricia just waiting . . .”

He thought for a moment. “How about you let Kevin choose?”

“How?”

“Write up a list of the alters and their functions, their major traits, memories, and let him choose who he wants to meet next.”

“I – that might work.”

“’Course it will. I came up with it.”

She huffed a laugh, more of a heavy breath through her nose than anything else. He’d take it.

“Because I’m nice, I’ll help you. And it gives him control over his own life.”

“Which he needs,” she added. Then she leaned her head back over his arm and said to the pale sky, “As long as he doesn’t choose Rakel.”

A bang came from the kitchen.

There stood Kevin, dazed and slightly confused, hand on a cupboard door. An odd glint came into his eyes. A glint Joe recognised and dreaded.

“Damn,” he said, “He heard you.” He and Casey scrambled to their feet and ran into the cabin. “Kevin, we’re going fishing,” he half-shouted.

“I think,” said Kevin, “I’m going to check on David.” His voice was his but it was oozing honey, sticky and sweet. He made for the men’s bunkroom. Joe rushed forward, grabbing Kevin by the arm and dragging him back.

“Leave Dad alone,” he grunted. “Casey, help me.”

She rounded on Kevin, holding him by the shoulders. “Fight it, Kevin. Rakel’s a fragment, you’re stronger than her.”

Kevin smiled at her, then stroked the side of her face. “You’re a gorgeous girl, Casey Cooke. You deserve to be kissed.”

Casey seemed to die. She curled in on herself, hiding far from reach, as the light left her eyes. For a moment, Joe wondered if she would run. 

But Casey Cooke was made of stronger stuff. "Sorry, Kevin," she said, "But you've got to get a hold of yourself."

And she slapped him. 

Kevin's hand dropped. The glint of Rakel faded. Casey clenched her hands into fists and told Joe to, "Cool him off. And make sure he understands what happened." Joseph hastily put on his hiking boots and grabbed a jacket, forcing the same onto Kevin, and tugged the stunned man from the cabin. Kevin nearly tripped on the stairs and stumbled across the tyre tracks.

“What the hell?” he muttered. “What was that?”

Joe patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll explain on the lake. Fishing rods are in the shed.”

* * *

Fighting through flashbacks - this was Kevin, Uncle John is in prison, Joe has Kevin, Rakel is gone, Casey  _calm down_ \- she groaned and muttered, “Damn it.” Why did everything have to be so complicated? Wasn’t the point of life in a log cabin that it was simple, removed from the rush and ravages of civilisation?

David emerged, already alert and ready for the day. “Where’re the boys?”

“Fishing," she muttered.

“I heard shouting.”

“Kevin met Rakel by mistake.”

"Oh." David might have shuddered if he’d been that kind of man. As it was, his expression spoke of trauma. Rakel, the sexually-driven fragment, had taken a liking to David from the first. Reasoning with her had been difficult, taking the combined efforts of Barry and Hedwig to lessen the libido that she consisted of.

Casey knew why she existed and wished she didn’t. She'd screwed up. Rakel was supposed to be brought out almost last, when Kevin was strong enough to cope, strong enough to understand.

(One way to deal with abuse was to create a part of yourself that responded to it with pleasure.)

Hopefully Joe would talk Kevin through it. 

“What’s the plan today?” asked David, not one to dwell. Right then, Casey was grateful for it. He made his breakfast, eggs on toast and coffee, same thing every day. He sat the head of the table, as usual. Casey sat at the opposite end and slumped over the table top.

“I’m writing up a list of his alters so he can choose who he wants to meet. It was Joe’s idea.”

“Good call. Need any help with it?”

“I should be fine. What about you?”

“Need to make sure nothing broke in the storm.”     

“Cool.” She didn’t move. She should get up, get the pad of sketch paper from her room and start the list. She had no energy. When David got up to do the dishes, she told him about Patricia and the Beast. He paused at her side, then placed a hand on her shoulder.

“I won’t let anything hurt you.”

She buried her face in her arms and felt the hot, thick tears roll down her cheeks. She hadn’t cried in months. When she was with Uncle John, she learned tears only got her into trouble – Uncle John had a technique of ‘consolation’ that became part of his abuse charges in court.

Crying twice in twenty-four hours, it was some kind of record, and it was because of Kevin Wendell Crumb and the Dunns.

How had they wormed their way so far into her heart without her noticing?

“Want to help me with the panels before you write your list?” David offered

She nodded, sniffed, wiped the tears, and followed David into the open air at the same moment a familiar mud-splattered jeep came trundling out of the forest. It parked in front of the cabin steps.

An elderly man stepped out. Despite the greying hair and the wrinkles and the liver spots, he was lean and spry, wiry muscle on every limb and flexibility in his joints. He wore a cap and a green fleece vest and thick khaki pants tucked into his hiking boots.

“Morning all,” said Ranger Dan, grinning. “I see you weathered the weather.”

“Morning, Dan,” said David. “How was the trip up?”

“Good, good. No trees fell, thank the Lord. Hope you don’t mind I gave your panels a bit of a clean.”

“We were on our way to check them.”

“Saved you a trip, then. Kevin around? I brought blueberries.”

“He’s out fishing with Joe,” said Casey.

Dan clicked his tongue. “That’s too bad, I’ve been craving a pie. Here, I’ll leave them in your capable hands.” Dan took out a cardboard box the size of a shoebox from the passenger seat and gave it to Casey. Inside a couple hundred juicy blue marbles rolled about. She tasted one. It exploded with flavour between her teeth.

She went into the kitchen and made space in the packed out refrigerator for the box, then took a moment to brush her teeth. David and Dan were at the dining table when she came out, poring over Dan’s cell phone. It was the first time she’d seen a phone with a screen wider than an inch in months. They’d agreed to toss their sim cards and phones en route to Jackson, lest they be tracked. The single satellite phone lay on the mantlepiece, collecting dust. 

“Casey!” Dan exclaimed. “This is what I came to show you. Sit, sit. You’re no doubt better with technology than I am, but I know a few things. See, we’ve got this webcam set up in the town square in good old Jackson. It _streams_ live around the world ‘bout what’s going on. And guess who we caught on tape yesterday? Here, I had one of my buddies freeze the frame. He called it a screenshot.”

He fiddled with his phone, said, “Ah hah,” and passed the phone over.

The camera overlooked the main intersection of Jackson, the camera facing an odd twiggy archway into the local park, with a few buildings in view that wouldn’t be out of place in a country-western film. In the background, the hills of Jackson Hole rose into the air, storm clouds rolling in over them, shards of bright sunlight stabbing through. The timestamp in the bottom right corner read: _11:03:54 – 06/21/17_

In the lower left corner a dusty red Hilux had been caught driving by.

And, clear as day through the open window, the bald head of David Dunn.

David swore.

“You were on camera for a second, that’s it,” said Dan. “Apparently people all over the world point out the red trucks when they watch the webcam and one of my mates at the tourism office is putting together a montage of them. He was showing me yesterday when you popped up. He has the webcam playing on his computer constantly.”

“This was live?” said David. “It’s not recorded?”

“Only the tourism office has the recordings. Don’t worry, I talked him out of putting you into the montage, said you’re a friend of mine and you prize your privacy.”

“Thanks, Dan,” said David with feeling.

“Thank you for everything,” Casey added.

Dan took off his cap and ran a hand through a thicket of wavy white hair. “Aw, no problem. Just repaying your old man. Plus, I like you guys. Wouldn’t want to see you locked up. People deserve a second chance.” He checked his watch. “I’d better be going then. You check on those vegetables,” he told Casey. “And get started on that greenhouse of yours. I want to see it when I next come up.”

“When will that be?” she asked as they walked Dan back to his truck.

“Next week, I think. You get Kevin to whip me up a blueberry pie and keep it in the freezer until I get here.”

“Sure thing,” said David. “Next week.”

“Next week.” Dan winked. “Excited to see that glasshouse.” He started up the jeep and drove off into the cool greenery, waving out the window at them before he turned the corner and disappeared.

“We need to tell Joseph,” she said immediately. “He’ll know what to do.”

“Too right. Until then, we’ll start that greenhouse.” Copying Dan, David rubbed his bald head. “I just hope we get to finish it before someone finds us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TOWRTA: I'm toeing the line between slice of life and delving into some serious trauma that is all too real while also figuring out the undercurrent of plot driving things. It's . . . an interesting balance. You guys will learn more about Rakel in the next chapter. 
> 
> Also, if you find any mistakes (or inconsistencies), let me know. I'm super tired at the moment and probably didn't focus as much as I should have in the editing process. Ahaha, the joys of episodic writing. 
> 
> BTW, the Jackson town centre webcam is a real thing. I don't think it was around in June 2017 (which is when this story is set, if we assume that Split and Glass were set in winter late 2016/early 2017) but we can pretend. Check it out. The whole 'red truck' deal is real too. I didn't plan this when I first wrote about David's red truck but I like to think it was my subconscious doing its job.


	6. Heinrich

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In dealing with Rakel, a new personality comes out to save the day - only to be ignored because Rakel is more than enough to be sorting out, thank you very much. 
> 
> Sorry, Heinrich. You can help with the glasshouse, at least.

 

Kevin had been determined to puzzle through the conspiracy of the mysterious SWAT team that day, perhaps talking it over with Casey and getting her to bring out one of the alters who could remember more of the time in the hospital. They’d know something.

Dennis, he thought, or Barry. They had to know something.

With this in mind and trying not to dwell on the whole _Beast. Cannibal. Impure_ thing – time for that later – Kevin got dressed in silence and opened and closed the bunkroom door so as not to wake up David.

This meant Casey and Joseph didn’t notice him emerge into the cool kitchen. They sat together at the edge of the porch, cuddled under a blanket. The picture of harmony. For the first time, Kevin wondered what their relationship was.

Something coiled in his stomach, ugly and poisonous. It was something like anxiety, something like anger, something close to hopelessness.

Jealousy.

He was jealous.

No, he _wasn’t_ jealous. He had enough on his plate to deal with without letting the closeness of Casey and Joseph rile him.

He opened a cupboard and listened with half an ear to their discussion. A list, huh? Good. Then he could ask to meet Barry or Dennis or someone who knew something for once and finally have more than disparate puzzle pieces and an idea of a picture.

“. . . Rakel.”

His arm jerked, the cupboard slammed shut, he stared at a whorl in its centre.

An odd emotion of freedom came over him, and a sense of strength that wasn’t to do with the muscles in his arms or the knowledge in his brain. It was carnal, full of appetite and a desire to gorge it.

 _Beast. Cannibal. Impure._ Still there, except hidden behind frosted glass so he didn’t have to touch it. Easily ignored. There were more important things to think about.

Like David Dunn in his bed and Kevin’s sudden craving for sensation.

Casey and Joseph were in the kitchen. For some reason, they were horrified. “Kevin, we’re going fishing,” said Joseph.

“I think I’m going to check on David,” he replied. It would be much more fun than fishing. He was powerful, on top of the world.

And then he was being manhandled and _she_ was there, telling him that this Rakel was a fragment. What was she saying, Rakel wasn’t a fragment, this was _him_ and he knew just what Casey Cooke needed to relax. Fighting it was the last thing anyone wanted.

“You’re a gorgeous girl, Casey Cooke. You deserve to be kissed.” He touched her.

_Slap!_

His left cheek burned, his eyes watered.

* * *

He remembered talking to a friend of his mother’s – stringy hair, colourless eyes, lips smeared blood red. What they talked about, he couldn’t remember. Like a dream, he was in the middle of it. She placed a hand on his shoulder. He smiled up at her, took up the hand and gave it a kiss, lips lingering upon the knobbly knuckles.

He remembered a man who looked like David Dunn but wasn’t David Dunn. They were in the backyard of his mother’s house. The man had suggested something and as if waking up, he was happy to provide it. Pleasure was pleasure.

More and more, dreamy memories flittered along, all tinged with that same lust for sensation and the tingling in his legs and that smouldering he never wanted to end. 

And he woke up again, properly, when he fell face-first into freezing water.

Kevin thrashed in the crystal clear lake and a different version of himself rose to the fore. He kicked, slicing upwards, and broke the surface. With ease, he treaded water and took stock.

Long thin lake.

Sun-soaked valley.

Pine trees everywhere.

Clifftops to the east where the sun was rising, a waterfall coming off them, another waterfall close by. And by the water’s edge, a few strides’ distance, a wooden jetty speared over the lake, with a dinghy roped to its poles. Standing at the end of this jetty was Joe, arms crossed, both concerned and angry.

“Got that out of your system yet?” he demanded.

Kevin blinked and felt the new identity being poured into the pool, along with that bucketful of whatever the heck Rakel was.

He managed to think past the delusions of the new identity – Heinrich, apparently, a Russian architect who might or might not have ties with the KGB – and yell at Joe, “I can’t swim!”

Joe sat down, legs swinging. “You seem to be doing fine.”

Kevin spat out water and swam over to a rope dangling into the water. It was slick and green and hard to climb. Groaning, he pulled himself up and flopped onto the old jetty. It creaked alarmingly.

“Why?” he panted at Joe’s back.

Joe didn’t look at him. “It’s the only way to properly get Rakel away. Nothing like a cold shower. I don’t envy you, mate. Barry told us about why Rakel exists . . . it’s awful. I’m sorry.”

All Kevin’s strength disappeared. Heinrich, the Russian architect who may or may not have ties to the KGB, filed himself into the category of _odd_ along with Mr Pritchard.

Rakel . . . Kevin lay there, unmoving, for a long time. This was the sort of thing Barry remembered, the memories Kevin had been shielded from.

He didn’t know if he wanted them back anymore.

The sun warmed his back. The temperature in the valley rose bit by bit and summer reclaimed Bridger-Teton National Forest. Last night’s storm left its mark in a few fallen trees and nothing else. A great caw made Kevin roll over and squint into the sky. A bird wheeled high up, near the tops of the valley slopes. Slow circles across the sky. What he wouldn’t give to fly, to disappear from all of this and spend a lifetime riding wind currents and diving over mountain ranges and seeing the whole world while never being hurt by it.

As he lay there, he was surprised to find that Heinrich had a moral code. Raised strict catholic by his mother – who didn’t exist, but that was neither here nor there – he thought on sex as being created by God as a gift, deepening the intimacy between man and wife, and made pleasurable so procreation would continue.

Which made the existence of Rakel taste all the more sour in his mouth.

Kevin thought back to seeing Joseph and Casey cuddled up under that blanket and knew it would be a long, long time before he could ever do the same. He thought of sitting next to Casey on the couch, of her tucked under his arm, and shuddered.

_I’m sorry, Casey. I’m more broken that I guessed._

“Fishing?” he said aloud.

“Got the poles right here,” said Joe, patting the two fishing rods lying on the jetty. Between the two of them, they untied the dinghy and cast off towards the middle of the lake. Here, far from the waterfalls, there was almost no current and they drifted at a snail’s pace.

Here, in the dinghy with its two benches, Kevin could almost feel Joe’s heat and wanted to crawl out of his skin.

“You remember how to set up?” asked Joe. Kevin shook his head and tried to pay attention as Joe attached the fish hook and its colourful fly and showed him the unlock mechanism on the reel that let the line out. He heard half of it.

“This is called jigging. I like it because it takes no effort.” Joe set up his rod and lounged on his bench soaking in the sun. Kevin noticed his pants for the first time.

“Are those pyjamas?”

“Yup,” Joe said to the sky, eyes closed. “Didn’t have time to change. Had to get you out of there.”

“. . . Sorry.”

“I get it. Trust me, I do. It’s just, you don’t have to do it anymore, you know? Rakel was a necessary at the time. It’s like a person goes along with kidnapper’s demands because otherwise they’re gonna get killed. They might not like what they have to do, and they might wish they’d thought of something else later, but at the time there wasn’t any other choice. When your mom’s friend made you,” Joe opened his eyes and waved his hands in the air, uncomfortable with saying the words, “do _that_ , you could have told your mom about it, but she wouldn’t have believed you.” His voice went dark. “And probably have beaten you too over it. The friend would have just turned up later and tried again, knowing you weren’t going to fight back that time. You were between a rock and a hard place so a part of yourself stepped up to the challenge and tried to make the best of a bad situation. Rakel made it easier to deal with.

“You’re not a kid anymore. You’re a fully grown,” Joe eyed Kevin, “and freakishly strong dude who can hold his own. You don’t need Rakel. She was useful but,” he shrugged, “you get to let her go.”

“It’s not that easy,” said Kevin.

“Never said it was. But you get to.”

They fished the rest of the morning. The ones they collected, they gutted with Joe’s hunting knife and put in the green plastic bin at the bottom of the dinghy. Three trout and one whitefish later, Kevin said, “You reminded me of my psychiatrist.”

Joe chuckled. “Blame Casey. She rubbed off on me. Yes!” He started reeling, dragging a fish through the depths of the lake into the sunlight, a silver dart splashing glittering water over them. Once it was safely in the plastic bin, Joe declared, “That’s enough to last us a few days. We better be going in.”

That’s when Kevin asked, “How did you know I could swim?”

Joe raised an eyebrow. “Uh, I kind of assumed you did.”

“I can’t,” said Kevin. “That was Heinrich.”

“What, the Russian architect guy?”

Kevin nodded.

Joe frowned and rose from his crouch on the bottom of the dinghy to sit on the opposite bench. “That’s not possible. Casey didn’t say his name. What – who do you think he is?”

“Might be a KGB spymaster, catholic mother.” Kevin dug around in the set of memories. They were different to the normal sort. He could sense their unreality, their lack of depth. They didn’t spark like memories of Casey or Joe, except for the few where Heinrich had appeared in the cabin or when he’d met Barry.

He continued, “He’s communist, thinks Hitler was a moron, and,” there it was, in Samuel’s knowledge banks, “he came from when Samuel read the Marx manifesto.”

Nodding, Joe said, “The alters were trying to figure out how to live in harmony – one of their ideas was a communist system. It didn’t work, but Heinrich got created as part of that idea. It’s weird that he came out, though. You feel any different?”

“I want vodka.” It came out very, very Russian.

Joe cracked up laughing. “All out of luck, mate. We picked up some juice yesterday, though.”

* * *

“Hey, that’s looking good, Case!” Joe called.

She looked up from the array of windows and doors laid out on the grass between the trees and the vegetable patch. There were six groupings, coming together into approximations of rectangles that would make a decent-sized greenhouse. Kevin examined her attempts at fitting the windows and doors together. Her giant puzzle was a bit of a mess.

“No,” he said, accent thick in the back of his throat. “That door should go there. Here, let me.” He picked up the lightweight steel frame and carried it to another portion of her puzzle. “Move aside.” She did. He set it down, shifting a window out of the way and laying down the door. It almost fit. That window, the green one, wasn’t right for its place.

He planted his hands on his hips. “I need pen and paper.”

Man, he was loving the accent.

“Kevin?” said Casey. “Are you okay?”

“I met Heinrich,” he told her. “Your designs need work. Pen, paper, now.”

Okay, he wasn’t loving the bossiness as much.

Casey stared. “How?”

“Joseph threw me into the lake to release me from Rakel. It worked a little too well.”

Joe grimaced. “Turns out Kevin can’t swim so Heinrich came out to save him.”

Casey looked as if she wanted to pursue the Heinrich-issue, but Joe gave her a quick shake of the head and mouthed _later_ which Kevin pretended not to notice. She rolled her eyes instead. “Right. My art book and a pencil are on the porch. Dan came and left some blueberries for you to make a pie later.”

“I shall.” He marched over to the porch and plucked up the drawing implements and started to sketch. Heinrich’s mind saw things in 3D and visualised the glasshouse immediately, along with the framework needed and the size of the trench they’d need to dig to settle the whole thing into. Then there was the consideration for painting the decrepit pieces in the mix and dealing with guttering and drainage and ensuring it was strong enough to withstand the Wyoming winters. So much to do. A perfect distraction.

Because Rakel, upon seeing Casey, had tried to erupt again and he was fighting her – himself – with everything he had. It made him almost ill to look at the girl, not because of her, but because of the way Rakel wanted, no _needed_ to touch, to caress, to – to . . .

Kevin scowled and called, “Let me draw this up! I will give you the plans and David can sort out building the framework.”

“Thank you,” said Casey. “I’m going to start on painting.”

“Cool,” said Joseph. “And while you do that, how do you feel about smoked fish for dinner? By the way, where’s Dad?”

* * *

Over dinner, David reported. “Dan came by today.”

“His pie is in the freezer.”

“It’s not that,” said Casey. “It’s . . . Joe, you and your dad were caught on camera in the town centre today.”

Kevin slammed his hand on the table. “They’ll find us!” he cried.

Joe dropped his fork onto his plate. It clattered amongst the stunned silence.

David recovered first. “What?”

Kevin leaned forwards, ready to impart the wisdom he had been mulling over all night. Mr Pritchard was in his element, shoving aside Bernice and Heinrich and Rakel. “David, the men who tried to kill us, they must be part of something. A society, a sect, people who want to destroy others like us. You say we were at that hospital because of our abilities? And that, at the moment when those abilities were to be revealed to the world at the Osaka Towers, we were attacked and almost murdered by a SWAT team? From what Casey told me, I was in the light when the Beast saw the threat of the sniper and saved me. My question is, if Doctor Staple had asked Casey to bring me out, and she succeeded, why did the sniper still shoot? And the man who tried to drown you, what policeman worth his salt would kill an obviously incapacitated man who could be easily handcuffed and taken in? Water is your weakness, David. They knew that by trying to drown you.”

Kevin by this time had left the table to pace back and forth, holding court in front of the dining room window and the blazing red and orange fire of the sunset sky above black trees. It was unsettling.

“Elijah Price was out of action. He wouldn’t be conducting any more devious plots to engineer fights between the Beast and the Overseer. I had taken the light and wasn’t a threat at that moment. David Dunn also wasn’t a threat. And yet they _still_ tried to kill us. Why? What could it mean?”

“I suppose you have a suggestion?” said David, dry as a desert.

“Yes!” Kevin declared with a finger stabbing at the air. “The conclusion I came to after many hours consideration is that Doctor Staple was part of a group dedicated to bringing down people who transcend the bounds of normal human ability. Like you and me, David. We can’t be the only ones. Where are the rest?”

“Look,” said David, “I agree that we’re not normal, don’t get me wrong. But a secret society that kills people who are little bit different? Really?”

“They tried to drown you, Dad!” Joe exclaimed.

“And Doctor Staple was the one who told me to bring Kevin out. Why shoot him when he was in the light unless she meant to kill?”

“This is ridiculous,” David insisted.

“Any more ridiculous than a man who cannot be broken?” asked Kevin. “I think these people are powerful, enough to take two men off the streets who the authorities have been searching for and murder them without any compunction. It was a slick attempt, I will give them that. It can’t have been their first time, which means they must have killed other people before now and no one raised an eyebrow.”

“If only I’d shaken her hand or something,” David muttered.

“It is too late for that now,” said Kevin. “We must prepare. If you were truly caught on camera, they may be able to find us. Who saw the footage?”

“It was a webcam,” said Casey. “It streams live to the internet. The recordings of it are kept at the tourism office.”

“Is there anybody who knows we are here?”

“Dan.”

“Does anyone else know that he knows we’re here?”

“His friend at the tourism office knows he knows us,” said Casey, eyes growing wide.

Kevin nodded. “That’s our weakest link. We must hope this friend does not divulge, or it could mean trouble. In the meantime, we must work on making ourselves secure here and prepare contingencies. There is no telling when these people might come for us.”

“Whoa,” said David. “No. There’s no such thing as secret organisations who kill people with odd abilities, and even if there were, they wouldn’t be watching a webcam of some town centre in Jackson.”

Joe spoke up. “They could run a program that searches the internet for facial matches to us. It’d take a lot of computer power but it’s not impossible.”

“Why would they? What’s in it for them? We’re not hurting anyone being up here, no one is chasing us. They’ll leave us be.”

“No they won’t,” said Casey. “If Kevin’s right, then we know they exist. And if they’re willing to kill people because they're stronger than normal people, won’t they kill us for knowing that they do it?”

“It’s not like we can tell anyone,” said David. “No one would believe us.”

Kevin shrugged and rested his hands on the back of his vacated chair. “We cannot guess what goes on in the minds of these people.”

“Right.” David got up. “I’ve had enough of this. I’m going for a run then I’m going to bed. You three can talk about your conspiracy theories without me.” David left without bothering to put his plate away. 

“Wait, Dad!” cried Joseph, and he raced after David, tugging on his coat and boots and rushing into the twilight. The front door swung on its hinges and clicked into the frame. Without a storm, the crackling fire was louder than ever and the silence even more so.

Blindsided by the sudden solitude, Casey and Kevin stared at each other a while, before Kevin coughed and collected the plates in a hurry.

“Are you really okay?” she asked awkwardly. “Rakel isn’t . . . easy.”

“I’m fine,” he rasped. He coughed again. “I’m fine.” It sounded almost normal that time, if a little Russian.

“I’ve _never_ heard you talk like that before,” she persisted. “Not even Mr Pritchard spoke that way.”

“I had a lot on my mind.” He wasn’t going to tell her that that was his attempt at beating Rakel out of his brain, crushing her under an onslaught of critical thinking.

“I could tell.”

He dunked his hands into the hot, soapy water and tried to scald off the growing discomfort. Alone with Casey in this secluded cabin, the Dunn men gone for who knew how long, her wanting to be helpful and compassionate and . . .

 _No_. He would not do that to her. He wanted to rip his skin off for thinking it.

Problem was, he could remember every act, every moment with his mother’s friend and that unknown man who looked like David Dunn. A fire ran under his skin red-hot and pulsating. Bernice and Mr Pritchard and Heinrich gave their advice and he couldn’t hear it through the rushing of blood in his ears and his disgust at himself.

It might have been a coping mechanism, it might be understandable, even worth compassion – that didn’t mean he didn’t want to throw up thinking about it.

Heinrich’s roar broke through, _Revenge! Get revenge on those who did this to you! They are the ones to blame._

Kevin concentrated on not running from the cabin to the lake and perhaps freezing himself to death to get away from it all.

“Do you really think there’s a secret society coming to get us?” she asked after a moment’s quiet.

“I don’t know.” A gleaming wood plate dripped on the drying rack. “Could be.”

“I knew this was too good to last.”

Dishes done, he was at a loss. He needed action, distraction, to not focus on her.

The sketchbook. The glasshouse designs. Never mind he completed them hours ago, they could use tweaking, fixing the labels, Heinrich’s handwriting was atrocious anyway . . .

He stoked the crackling fire and settled down with the sketchbook, pencil twirling in his hand. A darker line here, maybe extra bracing there.

The bathroom door opened and closed. The shower turned on.

_Damn it. Damn it. Damn it._

Teeth clenching, studiously not moving anything lower than his waist, he flicked through the other pages of her sketchbook. His mother’s friend whispered in his head, “Oh baby, you’re gonna make a young girl weep one day.”

_Shut up shut up shut up._

He could read, Samuel’s skill would be good, lose himself in the written word until she went to sleep and –

Oh.

Casey Cooke could draw.

She focused on the human subject, emotion and action and intent caught in delicate line art on page after page after page. She was good, exceptional even. Not in technique – even he could see she had some time to go yet before she mastered the pencil and paper – rather in capturing humanity. These were no idealised images of a person, beautified or heroic. These were people being people, doing run of the mill people things.

They were mostly him.

On the lower right corner of every page were her initials, CC curling into itself. On the left lower corner, a different name accompanied the image. They were him, and yet . . . not. Kevin hadn’t seen his face much over his life – mirrors didn’t feature largely in his memories. And yet he could tell when it was him and when it was an alter occupying his body by the clever way Casey drew the posture and the expression and conveyed the, well, feel of the person. How had he not noticed her drawing him baking the blueberry pie this afternoon?

Caught by the extraordinary subject matter, he half-heard the shower turn off and half-noticed Casey come and sit at his side, and half-remembered he’d been avoiding her. He didn’t remember why he had been avoiding her. Then she murmured, “You inspire me,” and he did.

“Don’t touch me,” he warned. “Rakel’s still . . .”

In his periphery, he saw her nod. “I get it.” Her fingers knotted themselves together. In a hush she admitted, “I kind of wish I’d had Rakel too. It would have made some things easier.”

“Trust me,” he said. “It doesn’t.”

The silence was heavy with a shared pain understood. It didn’t lessen the horror, it just made it bearable. 

At length, Casey said, “I’m sorry for slapping you.”

“Sorry for . . . that.”

“I get it.”

Kevin summoned the strength to look at her. She met his gaze, trauma reflected in her eyes and still compassionate for all that. She didn’t pretend to smile.

“Can you tell me who the others are?” he asked.

She nodded and reached for the pad of paper. He on the bearskin rug, her on the couch, they didn’t get closer and that was okay.

They had time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TOWRTA: Hmm. We're deep into it now, aren't we? 
> 
> Don't worry about the whole 'Heinrich comes out by mistake'. It will be addressed, just not right now. Quick sneak peek, next chapter will also have angst, and then we'll be done with what I like to call the 'set up' arc of this story and have a bit of fun with these characters. It's not all angst and sadness!
> 
> Look forward to that and let me know what you've thought. I am taking everyone's ideas for alters to heart - which have included bitcoin, anime, and art (hello, ItsThursdaysChildToYou, I gave the art thing to Casey, I hope you don't mind) - and I can't wait to hear other ideas. Keep them coming, y'all!
> 
> See you soon, peace out, and God bless.


	7. Norma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin Wendell Crumb's mother was pleased to be rid of her son for even a few hours on a Sunday morning. Meet Norma, who has spent her entire life in the same church on Sunday mornings, until she had to spend it reading the Bible in Kevin's head, stuck on her chair. 
> 
> Now she's out to deal with the aftermath of Rakel. Hmm. Let's see how she does.

 

In the end, he decided not to meet Dennis or Barry until last. They had histories with Casey that he, if he was honest, didn’t want to know about. He wanted his relationship with Casey to be his, Kevin Wendell Crumb’s. Yes, they were a part of him, but he wanted to figure out who _he_ was a bit more before then.

He didn’t tell her this. He looked at the list and asked, “Who do you think I should meet?”

“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?” said Casey.

“I want your opinion. You’ve met them.”

Her finger tapped a name. He read, “Norma. Why her?” Next to her name Casey had written _late twenties, protestant._ “She’s a Christian? Am I a Christian?”

Casey shrugged. “That’s up to you. She can help you with Rakel, that’s all. She talked me through a lot of it.”

He blinked. “She did?”

Casey stared at him. “We always need to talk about it with someone, Kevin.”

“I thought you’d chat with a counsellor.” _Not me._

“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re pretty wise when you want to be.”

 _Beast. Cannibal. Impure._ Yeah, wise, right.

“Do you want to meet her? She’s lovely.”

“What memories does she have?”

“Your mother took you to a church when you were young. She remembers the sermons and the Sunday school.”

Religion versus Rakel. He had a fear inside him that Norma would recoil from Rakel, that she might be bigoted and condemning. Though his memory was spotty, he had the idea that he and church didn’t go together. Yet he had a Norma.

Casey trusted her and he trusted Casey more than himself, so he said, “Say her name.”

* * *

_Norma’s memories consisted of being left at church by her mother for two hours every Sunday, where she would sit in Sunday school and recite verses and listen to their Sunday school teacher tell them they were loved. She enjoyed church, she enjoyed knowing she was loved by God._

_Then she was twelve and her mother still dropped her off at church and she went to the main sermons and loved it even more. Here, she listened to the preacher speak on his stage and lapped up the words. She took to heart words like ‘You are God’s children’ and ‘He is the Creator and before anything was even created He knew you and loved you’ and ‘His world would not be complete without you in it.’_

_When the service ended she went into the foyer, a place with blue carpet and windows that looked over the church carpark and had a café in the corner. She would sit on the big metal heater that pumped out hot air through the vent along the bottom, kicking her heels against the front panel. She was high-fived by the pastor – who called her Kevin, which was weird, but she didn’t mind because her mother called her Kevin and she assumed it was a nickname – and hugged by the pastor’s wife and told, ‘It’s always good to see you here.’_

_Men and women whom she knew from infancy came up to her and ruffled her hair and said things like, ‘How are you holding up?’ The question was confusing. What did they mean, holding up? Life was easy for her. She walked out the door, jumped in her mother’s car, and then she got out and walked back into church and listened to the pastor tell her that she was loved._

_God was cool in her mind. He could part oceans and set things on fire with a word. And he loved her. He loved everyone, no matter where they came from or what they’d done. That was the point. He kept right on loving them._

_Norma wanted to love like He did. Her favourite verse told her to, “Love God and love others as yourself.” That didn’t seem hard._

* * *

_One day, she met a voice in her head. His name was Barry. Barry told her, “Norma, I’m so sorry, but you can’t go to church for a while.”_

_“Oh,” said Norma. "Has something happened at church?"_

_“No, nothing at all, it's just closed for a little while,” said Barry. “Until you go back to church, would you mind spending time with me?”_

_“Sure!” said Norma, who loved everyone. “Who are you?”_

_“I’m Barry,” said Barry. “Come on. Dennis is taking care of things for a while. Let’s get you settled in.”_

* * *

_A shadowy, fragmented idea of a boy came up to her in this dark place of chairs and a spotlight and gave her a Bible. Barry had his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Samuel read this for you,” Barry explained. “To stop you being bored while you wait to go back to church.”_

_“Thank you, Samuel,” Norma breathed as she accepted the dense, leather bound book. In pretty gilt calligraphy, the letters KJV looped over the cover._

_Shadowy Samuel nodded his blurry head and wafted away. Barry patted Norma’s afro of dense black curls and left her to it. Norma opened the cover and started reading._

_“In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth . . .”_

* * *

_She thought Numbers was long-winded. It was mostly lists of generations and tribes. To some people that must have mattered but Norma couldn’t make heads or tails of it. She enjoyed Psalms because it was easy to understand. How much analysis does a verse like_ For your unfailing love is as high as the heavens _need?_

 _The New Testament made her feel warm and fuzzy inside – except for Romans and Revelation, those were challenging. She didn’t pay them much attention until she was twenty-three – and Ecclesiastes was sobering with its lines about_ Everything is meaningless _._

 _Then she found Song of Solomon which started,_ Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine, _and Norma read it with her innocence and love of love and it made her smile._

_Norma grew into a woman, reading the Bible because she had nothing else to do and she didn’t mind. She loved her Bible, she loved her God, and she loved everyone, especially the other twenty-two people in the chairs in the circle._

_The man in the chair next to her – she thought he was her age and very familiar; his face was the face she’d seen in the windows of her church – was hauled out of the light one day by a little boy and thrown into a heap in front of his chair. She got off her own chair and laid her Bible under his head as he slept. He didn’t wake up._

_“There, there,” said Norma. “God loves you.”_

* * *

 

_A long time later the light sucked her in. She met a man with a beard, whom she loved. She apologised to him because that sometimes sets people at ease. He looked terrified and she wanted to know if he was okay. However, he pulled a lever to turn on a light and she was thrown back into her chair while another was dragged into the spotlight. Eventually, a tall, thin, graceful woman in a kimono stepped into the glow and things settled down for a while._

_The man next to her slumbered on his chair. Norma had the Bible back and opened to Song of Solomon._ I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that ye stir not up, nor awaken my love, until He please.

* * *

_She had the impression that Barry wore a beanie and a tailored trench coat with scuffed boots. His woollen scarf looked as soft as a cloud. He said, “Hello, Norma. How are you?”_

_“I am well, thank you. How are you?”_

_“I’m doing great. I have someone I want you to meet.”_

_Norma tilted her head. “Is it that man? Where was that place?”_

_“It’s a girl named Casey. She will explain everything.”_

_“All right.” Norma held out her hand. Barry took it, tucked it into his elbow, and walked her to the light. At the edge of the white glow, he took the Bible from her and placed a kiss on her cheek._

_On the other side, Norma saw a young girl, arms hanging by her sides, a studied posture of beneficence. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Casey.” She was lovely, like the young woman in Song of Solomon._

_“Barry said you have something to tell me.”_

_Casey smiled. “I’d like to hear about you first.” She gestured to the couch and Norma sat down, crossing her ankles. She ran a hand over the fabric of the couch. It was made of raised thread of pink cabbage flowers and nests of green leaves._

_“Lovely pattern. A woman at my church does needlework like this. Her name is Sybil.”_

_Casey sat in the armchair. “You go to church?”_

_Norma smiled at the memories. “I do, though it’s been a few years. Do you?”_

_She shook her head. “Never had the chance.”_

_“Well,” said Norma. “That’s all right. Those who are lost will be found. Sybil used to deal in drugs. I think it was opium. She gave her testimony to us once, how she was one day locked in the trunk of a mob person’s car and she cried out to God in that moment. He met her, right then and there and saved her. He transformed her completely. She stopped dealing and became a missionary for Him, travelling all over the world and seeing miracles in every place she went.” Norma sighed. “I’d love to do that.”_

_“Travel?”_

_“See miracles. See God’s healing power. Peter, Simon Peter? Well, when Jesus went up to Heaven, Peter was one of the apostles who helped found the early churches and it’s written that people would be healed when just his shadow fell upon them. Can you imagine being so filled with the Holy Spirit that a person is healed by your shadow?”_

_Casey said, “That’s incredible.”_

_“Barry said you have something to tell me?”_

_“Oh. Yes . . .”_

* * *

_Casey came out of the bathroom, her long hair damp and curling about her elbows. “Oh,” she said, pausing. “Hi, Norma.”_

_Norma paused in reciting Song of Solomon. She was seated on the sofa, having taken Jade’s spot at the young girl’s request. The request was along the lines of, “You can deal with her. She’s got beyond baggage about boys.”_

_“I see Mr Dunn and Joseph aren’t here,” Norma commented._

_Casey sat on the bearskin rug and started running her hairbrush through her hair. Norma held out her hand, “May I?”_

_The girl hesitated for a moment before passing it over. She seated herself between Norma’s knees – what big, pale knees they were, so different to Norma's own. In the place of chairs and the light, she was petite and dark and had a huge cloud of hair. Kevin’s hair had grown some since she first learned the truth about Kevin Wendell Crumb. An inch long, its attempts at a curl were gentle waves._

_Using Kevin’s deft hands, Norma brushed Casey’s hair out with even, steady strokes and then gathered the hair above her ears and separated it into three. “Would you like a French braid?”_

_“Where did you learn to do them?” asked Casey._

_“You know, I’m not sure. It must be something Jade learned and passed on to me. I heard you girls were talking about boys.”_

_Casey stiffened. She pulled her knees into her chest and hugged them, digging her chin into flannel pyjama pants. “Yeah,” she muttered._

_A sudden thought came to her in Jade’s distinctive voice._ Her uncle was a bastard and he abused her, the pig. She can’t think about boys or boyfriends without flinching because of him. Bastard.

_Oh, the poor thing. Norma had read about the awful people of Sodom who had learned of visitors to a man named Lot’s house and had ordered him to hand them over, so that they might rape them. As it turned out, these visitors were angels of the Lord. In divine retribution, Sodom and its neighbouring cities, equally impious and wicked, were destroyed with fire and brimstone from Heaven. People were not always good, Norma knew. She only wished she never had to see it._

Lord, give me the right words to say, _Norma prayed internally. As she braided the girl’s hair, she said, “Why do you flinch?”_

_It was a long time coming, in which the tension grew and Norma was halfway done with her painstaking braiding, when Casey finally admitted, “Because I’m scared of them.”_

_“Oh?”_

_She hunched over, ducking her head, and the plait slipped from Norma’s hands. It fell apart. Norma started again from the beginning, this time at an awkward angle as Casey was determined to bury her face in her knees._

_“You don’t want to know.” Her voice, muffled and quiet as it was, was nonetheless easy enough to hear._

_“If you’re willing to talk, then I’m willing to hear,” Norma replied._

_Another long silence, in which Norma prayed inside herself and the windmill creaked outside, spinning in a lazy breeze that pushed the pine needles first one way and then another, swirling around the cabin. It caressed at the logs and tickled the grass that emerged after a long slumber under its snow blanket. Spring crept through the valley in green and gold, moss and sage buttercups pushing up through the damp earth to greet the warming days. At seven in the evening, the sun had yet to set and a fragment of its heat came through the western kitchen window, hitting the cut-glass salt and pepper shakers on the dining table and exploding into rainbow shards over the cabin._

_One of these rainbows fell at Casey’s feet. She reached a finger out, outlining the merging red and green and blue and digging her nail into the black bear fur. This particular bear skin rug lacked the customary head._

_“Single men scare me. They don’t have commitments to anyone, they’re free to do what they want and no one cares. They take what they want from women and think they have every right to because they’re men and they’re stronger and society tells them it’s normal. And we just have to put up with it and try to keep ourselves safe."_

_“Most men aren’t like that,” said Norma._

_“I know, I know,” said Casey. “David and Joseph and Kevin aren’t – especially not Kevin – but . . . when I think about_ being _with a man . . . I want to crawl out of my skin.”_

_Then she curled up so tight there didn’t seem to be anything left of her and she choked out, “He took everything from me. He kept taking and taking and taking and I couldn’t stop him.”_

_“Oh, my dear.” Norma didn’t touch her. Something told her Casey, at this moment, might flinch and scream if she tried. Instead, she said, “He’s gone from your life, and one day you will meet a man who doesn’t scare you and is nothing like your uncle. I believe that, with the right man, it will be as if every kiss is your first one and when you have sex,” here Casey jolted and, somehow, shrunk more, “it will be like the first time.”_

_“That’s impossible.”_

_Norma left the braid untied and carefully moved her legs to a less compromising position. Hands clasped in her lap, ankles crossed, Norma prayed again,_ Lord, give me the words _._

_The oddest analogy came to her, involving a horse, in a strange, half-formed idea and nothing else presented itself. Norma went with it because, well, she had no other option._

_“Have you heard the saying, ‘it’s no use locking the stable after the horse has bolted’?”_

_“. . . Yes?”_

_“Well,” oh, dear Lord, let this be the right thing to say, “I think in your case, and in Kevin’s, that horse didn’t bolt. It was taken, coerced from the barn while it was it was a foal, much too soon. It wasn’t the foal’s fault. Now that it’s grown, it’s lame, it has scars, it is scared of the world because of what was done to it, and who can blame it?_

_“You and Kevin have a chance to bring that horse back to the stable. Lead it inside and lay out a nice bed of straw for it. It deserves some time to rest and recover until it’s ready to face the world again and you, Casey, get to choose. No one can coerce that horse out, no one can force it from the barn. When the time is right and you’re comfortable and the horse is healed and healthy and knows it’s a precious part of you, then you can bring it back out into the daylight . . .”_

_She trailed off, not quite sure where to go next. Luckily, Casey stepped in by laughing. For a moment, Norma was confused and on the cusp of taking offence._

_Then Casey chuckled, “I bring it to the daylight to meet its mate, right?” Her tone dropped to contemplative. “Bring the horse back its stable . . . I like that.”_

_“It makes sense to you?” asked Norma._

_Casey nodded. “Is that a verse in the Bible?”_

_It was Norma’s turn to chuckle. “Not at all.”_

_“What’s your favourite part of it?”_

_“Song of Solomon,” said Norma without missing a beat. “‘Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.’”_

_Casey unbent from her ball and stretched long, slender limbs. She flopped onto the bear skin rug, linked her fingers behind her head and closed her eyes. “Can you read it to me?”_

_Inwardly, Norma sent up a quick,_ Thank you, Lord _._

* * *

“Rakel is the horse?”

“That’s the one.”

“Bring it back to the stable, huh?”

“Until you’re ready.”

It would be a long time before he was ready for intimacy. He was quite happy to have Rakel settled in her stable and sleeping for a while.

“What about you?” he asked her. Oddly, it was the addition of Norma that made him comfortable being forthright. She had this straight-talking, love and acceptance and confidence-in-the-Lord attitude that made it hard to be embarrassed. 

Casey raised an eyebrow. “My horse isn’t waking up any time soon.”

“Great.” A weight lifted off his shoulders. With Norma, the world appeared through rose-coloured glasses; life didn’t have to be so hard and things would turn out okay. Norma’s conviction in a human’s worthiness to be loved wrapped him in a blanket and softened the harsh edges.

Rakel settled in to sleep and a wealth of religious knowledge – which would take time to sort through and decide on – flooding in, he settled back and listened to the fire and Casey’s breathing and her scratching a new drawing in the sketchbook.

He was at peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TOWRTA: Question for writers out there: when you sit at a computer screen/notebook and can't write a word, why do you think that is? Is it because you have other things that are worrying you that have to be dealt with, or you haven't been reading enough and have no words left, or are you bored with the story/have no plan of where to go? 
> 
> Tell me, tell me, I want to know what writing is like for other authors. Pleeease. 
> 
> (Oh, and for everyone who's giving me suggestions for alters, THANK YOU. I am adding them bit by bit.)


	8. Ansel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quand il me prend dans ses bras, il me parle tout bas, je vois la vie en rose.

 

The cabin bathroom was more than your average hiker’s fare. David must have inherited his skill in woodcraft from his father, because the three little shelves and the vanity and even the toilet roll holder were beautifully made. How they’d managed to build a wood-tile shower of all things, and keep it waterproof after so many years, Kevin had no idea. And that ceramic floor had to have been a nightmare getting up here. Thing looked like it weighed a tonne. No wonder Ranger Dan decided to make the cabin his little secret when the path got demolished.

It did make Kevin wonder, though, about David’s father. This cabin must have taken years to build. When did he find time for his son?

But that was secondary, because the rest of the bathroom was economical, not luxurious. It showed in the bulk-sized shampoo and conditioner for the non-bald residents, and the two-ply toilet paper, and the cutthroat razor on the shelf by the mirror.  

A cutthroat razor.

Right.

A cutthroat razor.

Thing was, Kevin had never shaved in his life. He guessed one of the alters did that for him – maybe Dennis, whom Casey had described as _OCD_ and _clean_. Which left him standing in that tiny bathroom for the past ten minutes, getting up the nerve to pick up the cutthroat razor and lift it to his neck.

At least he trusted himself not to slice his throat on purpose. But by accident . . .

Kevin sighed and appraised his reflection in the mirror. Tired eyes, three days of thankfully non-patchy stubble, and hair that needed to be cut into a semblance of shape. The fringe lay on his forehead, limp and wet and splitting at the ends.

He wished his dad was there. He hadn’t wished that in years.

 _The Lord is our Father,_ Norma would say.

Kevin, unsure of his standing in faith, murmured aloud, “If you’re real, could you teach me to shave then?”

There came a knock at the door. “You done yet?” It was David.

Kevin opened the door. Something in his face – maybe it was the beard – prompted David to asked, “You going to shave anytime soon?”  

“Turns out I don’t know how.”

David nodded, an _I see_ expression coming over him. “Take a seat,” he said, and he slipped in and closed the door.

 _Huh,_ thought Kevin, half-joking with himself, _You don’t waste time, do You?_

Kevin sat on the composting toilet’s lid and watched as David disembowelled the vanity and the shelves of a shaving brush, foam, aftershave, and a stretch of leather he called a strop. David Dunn was a traditionalist and practical to a fault, like his son. When he and Casey said the Rakel situation was under control, both of them had taken it in stride and gone back to business as usual.

He explained as he demonstrated using the razor on himself, using that calm, rich voice that, if Kevin wasn’t mistaken, had taken on the paternal tone that he reserved for Joe. The man chuckled, saying that Kevin would find shaving easier that he did. “When you get to my age, your skin’s the first one to show it.”

David wasn’t like Kevin’s dad. From the few memories Kevin had of the man, he remembered a suit and tie and a hunched back as he wrote at his desk. He remembered silence and a long stare that drilled into Kevin’s three-year-old psyche and remained there. What did that stare say? Was it love, or appraisal, or disapproval? Kevin would never know.

What he had was David Dunn teaching him to shave. Kevin leaned forward and memorised the quick, clean strokes of the razor, feeling Heinrich’s grumbling approval.

“Be careful here,” David said, tilting his head back. His fingers pulled at the skin of his throat. “Your Adam’s apple is the hardest part.”

“Not that it matters for you,” Kevin replied.

David chuckled again. “True. Still, wouldn’t want to explain to Casey why we’re rushing you to hospital.”

 _The Beast would come out and save me,_ Kevin thought.

David patted his face down with aftershave, asking, “Got it?”

“Think so,” said Kevin. David held out the razor, handle first. Kevin took it and went to the mirror, the two men swapping places. David watched him with laughing eyes, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. He was waiting for Kevin to make his first mistake.

Kevin straightened his shoulders and vowed to prove the elder Dunn wrong.

* * *

“What happened to you?” Joe called. Casey looked up from the other side of the glasshouse frame. Her eyes widened.

“Are you okay?”

Kevin sat at the edge of the porch and crossed his arms. “I’m fine.”

David joined him, passing over a cup of coffee. “He had his first shaving lesson today. All things considered, he did pretty well.”

Joe whistled. “That’s gonna be impressive when it heals.”

He was talking about what hid below the massive plaster along Kevin’s jaw. It was a long cut from where he angled the blade wrong and almost nicked bone. It had left him shaken for about ten seconds, seeing the red, red blood flowing through the white shaving foam, until David took the razor off him and fixed him up with a plaster and said, “Sit down, I’ll do the rest. Damn, do you bleed.”

Now it just stung and was embarrassing. Kind of nice, though, to have David do the shaving. He’d closed his eyes and pretended he was a teenager with his father teaching him the tricks of the trade.

“How’s that glasshouse coming along?” David asked.

“Could use some help, Dad.”

“You look fine to me.” David took a long sip from his coffee. Kevin did the same, hiding his smile.

Joe and Casey returned to the glasshouse, checking that the windows and doors correctly fit in the pinewood frames before they screwed the whole thing together. The frames Casey had painted a lush green, the same colour as the pine needles hanging overhead. They lay on the grass next to the vegetable patch, among the dozens of windows and doors that reflected the early afternoon sun.

A trench wrapped around the section of the vegetable patch that the glasshouse would cover. They didn’t have the materials or the machinery to build a glasshouse to fit over the whole plot. 

Casey laid the last window in place, checked how it sat in the rebates, and declared, “We’re good!”

“Now clamp the walls together,” Kevin ordered, “Plates, washers, and screws are beside the plans.”

Joe groaned and flopped onto the grass while Casey went to look over the plans.

“You know what would make this better?” Joe asked the sky. No one replied. Propped up on his elbows, he speared Casey with a look. “Music. Guitar. Singing.”

“No.” She flipped to another page in the sketchbook.

“Come on, Case. It’d be fun!”

“Can Casey sing?” Kevin murmured to David.

“Not her,” said David. “You.”

“Me?”

“And you play guitar.”

“I do?”

“One of your hidden talents.”

Meanwhile, Casey and Joe were arguing.

“Not today,” said Casey.

“Ansel’s great,” Joe retorted.

“We’re meant to be building the glasshouse.”

“And music will help us along.”

“It’s meant to be Kevin’s decision.”

“So we’ll let him decide. Hey, Kev! You want to meet Ansel?”

“What’s he like?” Kevin called back.

“He’s loads of fun. He makes up songs on the spot. No bad memories either.”

Kevin tried to recall the list. Ansel was on it, near the bottom. What was the description for him? _Musical_ and _confident_.

Sounded like an all right kind of guy to him.

“Sure,” said Kevin.

“Casey, if you would,” said Joe, grandly gesturing from his place on the ground.

Casey looked as if she wanted to murder Joe, which made Kevin wonder whether he was doing the right thing – what could _possibly_ have her so against one of his alters when Joe thought they were fun? – but then she said, “Ansel it is, then,” and it was too late to change his mind.

Because he was a rock star.

Oh _wow_ Ansel was full of himself.

This was awesome.

In the blink of an eye, the memories of learning to sing and play guitar in school and practicing underneath Philadelphia Zoo popped into his consciousness. Along with them, Kevin learned three things about his alter ego – three things he was obsessed with.

Himself, his music, and his muse.

And there was his muse, right in front of him, begging to have a song written about her.

In the back of Kevin’s mind, he knew Ansel was ridiculous. This confidence was bordering on arrogance. If he ever met such a man and got stuck with him for any length of time, he’d probably want to lock the guy in a cupboard and walk away. That being said . . .

Kevin ran to the bunkroom, searched under his bed for the guitar – _thank you, Ranger Dan_ – and strode out onto the porch singing, “ _Ca-sey!”_ and playing a G chord.

Casey groaned and stared at the sky, asking the universe, _why me?_

Joe threw his arms in the air. “Yes!”

“ _Casey, your eyes are like a deer’s_.”

Okay, Kevin could see why Casey found Ansel insufferable, because every line of song coming to his mind was about her. The dude was infatuated. Good thing he was Kevin, and thus able to control that impulse and sing about other things.

“ _Casey, your smile is like the sun._ ”

Never mind.

“I swear, Kevin,” Casey warned, “I will throw something at you.”

A memory presented itself – him singing Justin Bieber’s Baby, with the clever swap of Baby with Casey. The memory ended with Casey picking up an apple and hurling it straight at his head. Whether it hit its mark, he didn’t know. Another alter must have stepped in to save Ansel from himself.

Kevin, who prided himself on his survival instincts – or, rather, Mr Pritchard did – shut up and sat down next to David and contented himself in playing, plucking at the guitar strings.

For some reason, he leaned towards playing tango music, with flourishes and quick fingering that impressed himself. He played, on and on and on, losing himself in the music and discovering that underneath the sickening self-absorption of his alternate self, he had talent.

He imagined his muse, a beautiful young woman with hair that swayed as she did. He played for her, joining her as she spun across the dancefloor. The music was in her soul. It was in her breath. She was the music.

His fingers ran along the fretboard and he discovered the intensity, the drama, the speed of the guitar. It evoked every emotion he could understand and many more he couldn’t.

And with it, she danced among the birds chirping in the trees and tangoed with the whistle of the wind. She spun along the trickling stream. She dove off the waterfall. She clapped her hands through the clouds. She stamped her feet on the surface of the lake.

He played for her and her alone.

The song quietened and he added his own voice to it. At first there were no words. He crooned to his muse. She drifted along, swaying in his mind’s eye.

Words came eventually, words of the wonder of her. Not just of her beauty – that wasn’t the half of it. He was enraptured by his muse’s soul. Her great vivacity of life, tempered by compassion and a gentle spirit. He sang to the fire that burned within, to grow hotter and brighter every day, with every breath. He sang the Song of Solomon.

Though he might never measure up to his muse, might only be able to serenade, that was enough.

* * *

When he next looked up, the frames were set in place over the vegetables and the Dunn men were fitting in the windows to the roof. A ladder had been positioned amongst the lettuces and the carrots and David sat on top, hammering at a red casement window. The sky was yellow to the west and indigo to the east and pale blue in the centre. Some stars already shone in the cloudless expanse, listening to him play.

A plate of roasted vegetables and sliced steak Bernice’s memories told him was bighorn appeared on the porch slats. A knife and fork gleamed amongst the tiny potato hills and salt crystals.

“Hungry?” said Casey.

His dancing muse vanished when confronted with the tangible thing. Ansel was gobsmacked for a moment. Kevin pushed him aside. “Starving,” he said. He set the guitar aside – _play, play for her, sing to her, she’ll love it_ , battled against Kevin’s _shut up, you’re not ruining this_ – and dug in.

Casey knelt beside him. She produced a slender pair of scissors and a comb. “May I?”

He swallowed a mouthful of juicy, delicious steak – she’d used a marinade from her dad’s old hunting journal, the one with dry vermouth and lots of herbs. “Please.”

She smiled and settled behind him. The comb’s tines ran along his scalp. Sated by music and food and good company, Rakel slumbered on and the sensation of Casey was no longer dangerous but calming.

How could his life have changed so much in a few short months? It was almost unbelievable. No, scratch that, it _was_ unbelievable. It was beautifully, wonderfully inconceivable that he could sit here, after all he’d done and all that had happened, and look up at a twilit sky and know that he didn’t have to fear his alters or other people. It was . . . divine?

_The conspiracy!_

Kevin soothed Mr Pritchard – _not now, you’ll have your turn_ – and relaxed more with every brush of the comb and the snipping of scissors. Tiny scraps of hair fluttered about his shoulders and he batted them away before they reached his food. Dark brown. His father’s colouring, he thought, his mother’s was lighter than this.

Kevin didn’t know much of her, even less than he knew of his father. He remembered an angry face and stringy hair and this sensation of utmost terror. Bernice supplied the instances of dinner. Norma got in and out of her car. Mr Pritchard and Ansel and Heinrich lived in worlds completely separate to her, and Samuel didn’t have any memories for himself anyway. Rakel . . . she knew things but they weren’t of his mother.

What great horror of this woman hid in his brain? What did he shield himself from by fragmenting? What was his past?

Casey shuffled around, her knees pressing into his right thigh, and she squinted in the light coming from the living room. Her long ponytail lay over her shoulder and swayed, tickling his upper arm as she moved. It raised the hairs, nothing more. It was comfortable.

He watched her out the corner of his eye and thought, _at least the future is bright._

_The conspiracy!_

Kevin sighed.

“Is something wrong?” asked Casey, pulling back.

“No. Sorry.”

She returned to clipping, the flat of the scissors cold against his ear. “I need to tell you something,” she started, glancing towards the boys for a moment. Combating the encroaching darkness, Joe held a torch to direct his father as he set in the front door in place. Kevin’s plans used the heavy mahogany door for the purpose.

“Yes?” Kevin prompted.

“It’s about . . .” Casey pursed her lips. She leaned away again, resting on her heels and watching the men. Her neck craned back as her gaze went to the sky and the thousands, millions of stars that grew from mere suggestions to a glittering extravaganza. New moon tonight. The valley would be lit by starlight.

The ever-present wind whipped around the cabin and snatched at her hair. Strands tugged free and fluttered about her face. On Ansel’s impulse, Kevin tucked the strands behind her ear. Her hair was softer than he could ever have imagined.

“Never mind,” she said, not looking at him. “It can wait for tonight.”

“If you’re sure?”

Now she turned those doe eyes on him and she smiled.

Kevin swapped his empty plate for his guitar and plucked out a song that made her smile brighten. He sang in French, so that she might not tell him off for the lyrics; true love, angels singing at his darling’s voice, and roses blooming at her touch.

She attended to his hair while he played, humming along.

He could stay here forever.

_“Quand il me prend dans ses bras,_

_“Il me parle tout bas,_

_“Je vois la vie en rose.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TOWRTA: Hmm, and here we see the calm before the storm (spoiler alert, but not really, because I warned you that this wouldn't stay happy forever. My poor darlings, life will not be so easy yet). 
> 
> Sorry I'm late. Had a massively busy week - oh, when your plan for 2019 suddenly changes and you sit there going 'huh. okay. let's do this now then.'
> 
> btw, for anyone who has left a comment and I haven't replied, I will get on to it lickety split. I am in the process of making a tumblr (haha, listen to me, I'm partway between Millennial and Gen Z and on AO3 and don't have a tumblr. Old School) so if anyone wants to chat more about the story, life, themes, anything, you can do over there. I'll let you know when it's up. God Bless Y'all!


	9. Mary and Ian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin and Casey and David found solace in that cabin in the woods.
> 
> Joe didn't.

 

Joe disliked days.

Not mornings, not evenings, but days – that long, interminable time in which other, enterprising people were useful and productive and contributed to the greater good. ‘Day’ started at eleven o’clock and ended at six, bookended by morning and evening and squatting opposite night. In those day hours it felt like the middle part of an essay or a thesis or a marathon. His mantra became _it will be night_. Then it would start again the next day. And the next. And the next. Forever and ever, those painful seven hours of uselessness.

When he was younger it was called the ‘holiday blues’ when kids without summer jobs would find themselves bored out of the minds. As a concept, this horrified him. How could he possibly dislike the holidays? School was the prison, holidays were freedom with sunshine, simple. So why did he reach that last part of July and start wishing for school to put him out of his misery?

At the start of a non-school, non-work day, he said ‘this is fine, I’m okay, you’ve got all the time in the day to do something useful’ and then it hit maybe three or four and his thoughts dove off a cliff.

You achieved nothing. What a loser. Your father is better than this. What a screw up.

Evening came and the bad thoughts petered off into quiet, solemn contemplation, tempered with relief that the day was over and his parents were home. The deadline of sleep approached, the rest of Philadelphia – except those poor night shift workers – were going through their evening rituals same as him. He couldn’t be a failure in having a shower or brushing his teeth. See, look at him, he was fine, he was like everyone else.

When he went to sleep he made the fragile promise that _tomorrow would be better_.

Wake up, eat breakfast with the parents, say goodbye, wave out the window, start reading a comic book and thinking about how his dad was way cooler than any of those posers, then . . . eleven. Sometimes ten-thirty, sometimes twelve. Inevitable. The comic would droop in his hands and he’d stare out at the world and think _I could go outside._

Except he couldn’t. He had friends or the park close by, and yet he couldn’t. Lethargy, apathy, contrariness, call it what you will, it ended with the same result; Joe wandering aimlessly through his house wiling away those same seven hours.

Some days it would be better. He’d manage to get out of the house and the good mood would last into the following day and then the next day rolled around. Back to his regularly scheduled programme. Weekends were different, of course, because Mom and Dad were there. Monday was recovery. Tuesday kicked it off. Fridays his friends might drag him out for the evening. The middle of the week, like the middle of the day, was the worst.

Joe Dunn didn’t think he was depressed but that summer time sadness got pretty dark.

As he got older, he learned the secret – keeping busy. The satisfaction and diversion of work, whether it be at the local community centre, community college courses, or working with his dad at the shop and on the streets. He was one with the useful, productive masses of Philadelphia, doing his part to keep the world turning. He needn’t worry about those holiday blues because for him holidays were public ones. And if four o’clock ticked over and the heavy emptiness sat on his chest, well, that was fine. Tomorrow he had work.

Plus, he had his evening job with his dad, which made him feel a little more special than the rest of those Philadelphia masses, so perhaps life was more than normal – it was _interesting_. The marathon days were over for good, he thought.

Then Kevin Wendell Crumb and Casey Cooke and Doctor Ellie Staple came on the scene and he and his father were answering a phone call from said Kevin and Casey and then they were driving on up to Jackson, Wyoming. Then to Taylor Valley, Wyoming.

Then this tiny cabin in the woods, Wyoming.

Joe thought _this was definitely interesting_ when he heard about the plan to meet all the alters and deal with the trauma – it was like interviewing a supervillain.

As they discovered, it was more like interviewing a near two-dozen varied and quite damaged people and learning what made them tick. At first the idea had been to let the alters teach Casey what their roles were. What it became was a six-month therapy session to ameliorate the damage of integration for Kevin.

Most of that was done by – ding ding ding, winner! – Casey Cooke. She and whoever it was in the light that day would talk and talk and talk while David braved the cold for the woodshed and retaught himself old skills from woodshop. Joe . . .

Sat.

Read.

Stared at falling snow.

Remembered that days were like marathons, easy to start, relieving to end, it was that middle part where time kept ticking and you had to find ways to spend it that screwed you over.

When he was young, television and video games were his escape. When he grew up, he understood how useless they were. The show would end, he’d get bored of the game, and back to square one. Next thing.

In Taylor Valley, Wyoming, he didn’t have video games or television. He didn’t have a job, or a community centre. He had himself, three persons, and twenty-four people, and – except for travels into town and the rollover high on the day after – boredom.

Like now. After a full day of working on the glasshouse and getting that sorted out, he should have been glad for the quiet evening. Sitting underneath the living room window, he tried to fit a blue piece of a puzzle with a corner. It didn’t. Story of his life.

Joe glanced at the dining room table and tried not to feel horrible. As the outside world became the property of its nocturnal wanderers, Casey and David worked together stripping, cleaning, and taking ammunition inventory for their dozen weapons – their crossbow, the three rifles, the four shotguns, the two pistols, the regular bow, and the revolver David brought from home. David matched shells and arrows to their weapons while Casey made sure they functioned smoothly. This was a weekly ritual of theirs. Such wonderfully productive people, they should be so lucky.

He knew he was being unfair – they’d had more than their fair share of pain. Gone through the fire, as the saying went. Still. Sometimes a mood like this descended and Joe didn’t have the mental energy to fight it off.

He tried another puzzle piece. That one didn’t fit either. What was the puzzle supposed to be again? The box showed a blue sky and a sandy beach with a single palm tree. He didn’t think he’d ever seen a palm tree in his life.

Kevin played guitar. He flowed from known songs to personal compositions and back again and kept the mood soft and homely. Ansel’s brashness was tempered by Kevin’s more withdrawn nature. The two personalities worked well in balance.

Maybe he could get used to this, Joe decided, if he had Wi-Fi. He wanted to smack something. The others were different – David was sentimental about his father’s cabin and Casey was some kind of doomsday prepper because she knew way too much about homesteading and Kevin, well, special snowflake thy name is Kevin Wendell Crumb.

Joe would be more useful driving into town and getting to a computer café and researching. They still had computer cafés in 2017, didn’t they? He be useful and find this secret superhero-killing society.

It took a moment for him to notice that the music stopped playing. He heard the quiet chuckle. It sent a shiver down his spine.

“How precious. You think that will stop him?”

Every hair on Joe’s body stood on end. A horrible, charged atmosphere swelled inside the cabin, originating from Kevin. Joe could see the profile of his face over the back of the couch. Kevin stared, amused, at Casey and David and the pieces of ordnance strewn between them.

This wasn’t Kevin. This wasn’t Ansel or Heinrich or Mr Pritchard either. Joe had the awful idea that he knew exactly who had taken over.

The cynical, dark part of Joe’s mind said, _Well, at least this will liven you up a bit_. This part was met with the inevitable _change in routine = energy usage = bad_ and he tried to ignore both.

“Patricia,” Casey hissed.

David stood, chair scraping back. Casey put a hand on his arm to stop him. Joe remained staring, growing more fascinated by the second. Patricia. The high priestess. He’d never met her before.

“Did you forget about me, dear? How disappointing. But don’t you worry, I’m not going anywhere. In fact, I’ve decided to join you in your plan, move things along, so to speak. I hope you don’t mind. After all, you’re so sure you can take care of Kevin. You’ll realise how out of your depth you are soon enough, my dear.”

She was terrifying.

Patricia flickered out of existence between one breath and the next. The guitar strings twanged when the instrument hit the floor. A high-pitched, quick-talking Irish voice spilled from Kevin’s mouth.

“Oh, _God_ , I’m back in this dump? And that bearskin? Those things should be illegal, this is awful.” Kevin – no, _Mary Reynolds_ , which wasn’t possible – snatched her feet off the rug and curled up on the couch. She glared at Casey. “You. Still hanging around Kevin? You could do better. I know you said he’s a nice guy but _seriously_ , he has issues. Get someone better looking.” Mary pointed at Joe. “Like him, he’s not such a screwup.”

“Kevin,” said Casey, “Can you hear me?”  

The voice switched, lowering a tinge and slowing a mite and just as unimpressed. “Can _you_ please kill this guy already?” Ian Reynolds, the twin.

“What’s happening?” Joe said, jolted free of apathy. “I thought these two got integrated.”

“Oh, no, no, silly billy, Patricia intercepted us.” Mary giggled. “Barry thought we were sleeping but Patricia kept us wide awake.”

“Which is Hell because I don’t want to be stuck in Kevin,” Ian griped. “He never could do anything right at school. He blew up the chemistry classroom.”

“And when we told him to leave he came right back,” Mary put in.

“What a loser, should have drowned himself.”

“So ugly too.”

“Mary, stop, we talked about this.” Casey took a step forward, looking uncertain and trying to be brave. David hung back. Joe watched on.

“I know, I know,” said Mary, waving a hand about in the air. She flicked her head as if she had long hair and smiled prettily, cocking her head to one side, “Kevin is special and we exist to protect him whatever way we can and we must recognise that persecuting him is a form of protection gone wrong. Therefore we must instead speak love and life over him, blah blah blah.”

“Problem is,” Ian interjected, “the definition of persecution is ill-treatment because of religious, racial, or political disagreements. We don’t care about any of that. We just think Kevin’s a failure.”

“Pointless.”

“Should be put out of his misery.”

“Like a dog.”

They giggled as one.

Of all Kevin’s alters, Mary and Ian Reynolds were among the ones Joe disliked the most, up there with Patricia and the Beast. They were spiteful Catholic school children with none of the goodness of God. Joe had learned from the other alters that Mary and Ian had been Kevin’s middle school tormentors. Why Kevin had developed them into his personality, Joe had no idea. If he had a computer, he could find out.

Joe stood and leaned on the windowsill. “Hi, Mary,” he said.

Mary turned to face him. Her eyes lit up. She blushed and smiled coyly, a disturbing sight in Kevin’s face. “Hi, Joe.” She gave a little wave.

Casey moved, blocking off their route to the kitchen. David stationed himself before the front door, arms crossed, feet apart, ready for anything. With these two, you couldn’t be sure what they would do to torture Kevin more.

“How’s it going?” Joe asked.

Mary stuck out her tongue. “Boring as Hell. You can’t believe how dull it is inside Kevin’s head. It’s dark, dark, dark, with nothing to do.”

_I can relate._

“Hey!” said Ian. “You want to go fishing again?”

“It’s a bit late, buddy,” said Joe. “What’s the deal with you and Patricia?”

“We’re her favourites,” said Mary.

“She used to like Dennis and Hedwig more but then Hedwig fell in love with her,” Ian pointed at Casey, voice waspish, “and she realised we were better than that loser.”

“I don’t know what they see in you,” said Mary to Casey. “You’re not worth it. Like Kevin.”

“Loser.”

“Wimp.”

“If you move we could get a knife and be done with it now,” Ian told Casey. “Then you won’t have to deal with him.”

“Won’t that be defeating the purpose?” said Joe. “Don’t you want the Beast to survive and destroy the impure?”

“Bah!” cried Mary. “That thing?”

“We don’t care about that.”

“We care about making Kevin realise he’s a waste of space.”

“Like, why does he even exist?”

Mary nodded emphatically.

 _Damn psychopaths_. Joe’s fingers dug into his arms so hard he was sure he would puncture the skin and draw blood soon. They’d worked so hard with these kids for months, reasoning with them, trying to get them to join the integration. At first it seemed impossible – they were the most spiteful, vindictive creatures he’d ever met.

Then, suddenly, a month ago they surfaced and admitted their wrongdoing.

_“We’re sorry.”_

_“We shouldn’t be mean to Kevin.”_

_“We’ll be good. We’ll integrate.”_

_“Kevin is nice, really. We’re the bad ones.”_

_“Sorry.”_

Joe should have realised there was something wrong. It had to have been Patricia, bringing them over to her side – or, at least, trying to. He wondered what she’d said to convince them. He asked.

“She said we were going to die and be forgotten if we got integrated.”

“We don’t want to die.”

“We want Kevin to die.”

“If you kill Kevin, _you_ will die,” Joe replied.

“Yeah, but . . . At least Kevin will be gone too.”

And they giggled again. Insane, the both of them. How could they exist inside _Kevin_ , who was also Norma and Bernice?

Joe might get bored now and then, but at least he wasn’t host to these two parasites.

Casey was looking desperate. They needed to get these kids out of Patricia’s control, otherwise she could keep shoving them into the light whenever she wanted.

“If Patricia learns that you don’t care about the Beast, she’ll get rid of you,” Joe said.

That made Mary narrow her eyes. She knelt up on the couch and rested her arms on the paisley backrest. She bit her lower lip, Kevin’s lower lip.

“No, she wouldn’t,” said Mary.

“Yes, she would,” said Casey. “She cares about the Beast and the Beast alone. She’s only using you.”

“Shut up. I don’t care what you have to say.”

“She’s right, though,” Joe cut in. “You’re a pawn.”

“She’s _our_ pawn,” Ian insisted. “We’re using her. We don’t care about her stupid Beast.”

“Then prove it. Integrate,” said Joe.

“What?”

“The only reason you’re around is for Patricia’s whacked out plan to bring the Beast back. She wants to destabilise Kevin, make him weak. That way she’ll have a foothold.”

“We want Kevin weak too. It’s all the same in the end.”

“No, it’s not, because if the Beast comes, Patricia will have no use for you anymore. She’ll trap you in Kevin’s boring mind forever and you won’t be able to torment him anymore.”

Casey’s expression said, _what the_ heck _are you doing?_ His father’s read much the same. Joe prayed they’d let him continue – because he knew how desperate you can get to escape the boredom. You’d try just about anything in the end.

Hopefully Kevin was strong enough to deal with the integration of some truly appalling personality traits.

Joe crept forward and knelt at the back of the couch, neck craned back to look them in the eye. Let them believe they had the power in this situation. Bullies acted stupidly when they thought they were in control.

“But,” Joe murmured, “If you integrate, you will merge with Kevin and you’ll get to torment him all day long. You can be the voice in his head telling him he’s a loser or whatever, and Patricia won’t be able to get rid of you. The darkness will go away, the boredom will go away. You’ll be _free_.”

Ian switched to Mary, the blush rising to her cheeks again. Her breath washed over Joe’s face. Close, too close, Kevin’s distorted face was inches from his. She whispered, “And I’ll get to spend time with you?”

“All the time in the world,” Joe promised, winking and wishing he could slap this horrible girl out of Kevin’s body.

Kevin’s eyes glazed over and Joe wondered if Ian and Mary were having an internal conversation with Patricia. He hoped the innate contrariness of the Irish twins would win out. He knew from experience they disliked cooing and pleading and disliked older women especially. Patricia would be repulsive to them – it was bizarre that she managed to convince them to her side in the first place.

Ah, such are the self-preservation instincts of bullies.

“All right!” Mary declared.

“Time to make Kevin wish he was never born!” Ian cried.

“And Patricia can shove it.”

“Nutty bat.”

“Psycho lady.”

“She needs to be put down too.”

They giggled. Mary leaned forward and pecked Joe’s cheek.

Then Kevin reared back. “What the –”

He hunched over so fast his head smacked into the back of the couch. Underneath the paisley fabric was a thin coating of foam over the pinewood frame. Kevin’s forehead connected with a loud _thunk_ and the poor guy teetered and tipped backward. At the last moment, Casey managed to catch Kevin before he cracked his skull on the edge of the fireplace.

“What happened?” he moaned. Then his eyes snapped open and he said, “Mary. Ian. They – they – I’d forgotten – Casey, they’re _inside me_.”

Between the three of them, they got Kevin propped against the couch, leaning on Casey’s shoulder. She gripped his hand in both of hers. The Dunn boys sat on either armchair and Joe noticed a beat later that he’d copied his father’s position, leaning forwards, elbows braced on knees.

“How do you feel?” asked David.

Joe watched Kevin fall apart before their eyes. He collapsed in on himself, crying, hiccupping sobs that made his whole body jerk. A panicky horror set itself on his face and remained there, sinking deeper and deeper into the fabric of the man as Ian and Mary and their hatred of him made itself known.

Casey wrapped herself around him as if she might absorb him into her skin. David watched, brow furrowed and lips thinned into one grave line. The music of the night dwelt forlorn inside the cast off guitar and was replaced by Kevin’s weeping and Casey’s whispered soothing.

Joe’s pride at getting rid of Mary and Ian dissolved to nothing. He should feel something right then – compassion, fear, revelation, anything. All he felt was the need for seclusion.

He leaned forward, patting Kevin’s shoulder, and stood.

“Where are you going?” his father asked.

“Getting some air.”

Casey looked at him, saw something in his expression, and nodded. Joe avoided the creaky floorboards as he gathered together shoes and coat and flashlight and he struck out into the night.

Dark white shadows loomed all around him as he made his way across the dry, crunching pine needles. A route planned itself without his conscious input and he followed. It was cool and loud out here. The flashlight bounced off the glasshouse and reflected in scattered spotlights over the trees, then he was past it. The stream led him up the gentle slope.

Eventually, he found the place where the hot spring opened out in front of him. He found the rock at its edge and turned off the flashlight. The stars above were enough to turn the mist that wafted off the surface into a great silver cloud. It ebbed and flowed in tiny gusts and coated him in damp calcium. The starlight shone on the build-up of the white mineral over the rocks at the spring’s edge, including the one he sat on. If he sat there long enough, he might become white too. A statue. _The Man Who Stopped._

Sighing, he held out his hands over the warmth of the water.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I’m trying.”

He stayed a long time out there, just breathing in the quicksilver haze.

Eventually, he got up and walked alongside the stream, hating every step he had to take back to that house. A cloud of moths and other, bigger, flying bugs hurtled into the porch light Casey had left on for him. He switched it off when he went inside.

On a whim, he flopped onto the couch instead of going to the bunkroom.

As he lay there, wondering if he was stupid for not simply getting up and going to bed, he told himself _tomorrow would be better._ And he knew it would be – because he was taking that truck to town before eleven o’clock and getting to a computer café and researching this damn secret society until it killed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TOWRTA: So . . . planned for this one to still be along the 'light hearted' lines . . . and then I had today and Joe came along and spelt out what my day was like so perfectly that I had to go with it. There was nothing else to write. Mary and Ian were already part of the scene, I just needed Joe to come along and tell me a snippet of his story to bookend it. 
> 
> Different, I realise, but painfully relatable. 
> 
> Hope you guys are doing well. Tumblr is up - shearpower.tumblr.com. Don't expect much, I'll get around to making it 'presentable' soon enough. See you next time!


	10. Luke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a battle to be fought in Kevin's mind. Giant trees, absent fathers, surprise backstories, and lots of wood chopping ensue. 
> 
> 'It might be Luke’s influence, but Kevin couldn’t help thinking – damn, he was cool.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long, it required so much fine-tuning to get it right - but it ended up being a beast (lol) so I hope you enjoy!

 

Two hours after finally falling asleep, Kevin was woken by the front door slamming. A moment later, the truck engine revved, tyres chewed up dirt. The grumble of the Hilux faded into the trees and a grind, violent, ripping, revealed itself amongst the birdsong. Kevin thought it might be a chainsaw, though he couldn’t recall when he’d ever heard one before. It revved and roared and relaxed into a puttering growl, ready to eat again. It sounded far off. Kevin looked left. Both David and Joseph’s bunks were empty. Only question, who was doing what and where was Casey?

Then their voices started again. The brief respite of sleep had not crushed them. _Since you’re alone it will be easier to off yourself. No one to stop you._

“Ugh.”

_Go ahead, Kevin. Do it._

“Shut up.”

_Seriously, kill yourself. No one needs you. Laaame._

“Get out of my head.”

_Wimp. Wimpy-wimp. Wiiimp wimp wimp –_

“No!” Kevin scrambled out of bed, falling to the raw blue carpet on his hands and knees.  The cool air drove out the last dregs of tiredness. After a night of tossing and turning and having _them_ jump around his consciousness with that infuriating laughter, he was fed up. He needed distraction. He found clothes, jeans, t-shirt, plaid jacket, thinking, _cook. Investigate the conspiracy. Read. Have sex. Design another greenhouse._ His hand was on the bunkroom doorknob when Norma’s thought came.

_Fight back._

Fight back.

Fight. Back.

_La-la-la-loser. You know there’s a knife in the kitchen?_

The part of him that was Norma switched on like a light – no, she swelled like a wave, a wave of righteous indignation in the pool of his mind that bubbled and foamed and spat out the Bible verses she so believed in. Kevin froze and watched the battle waged in his own head.

 _You have no right!_ Norma shouted, not out of anger but out of injustice. _Not when you were in Kevin’s school and not when you’re stuck in his head; you have no right to talk to him this way. He is fearfully and wonderfully made by God and he will_ not _be touched by the evil one._

Mary and Ian sneered, _What you gonna do? Exorcise us?_

 _He has the peace of Christ that surpasses all understanding._ If Norma had a body of her own she would be standing and shouting at the twins and all they represented. _He is loved, he is worthy to be loved, and he has a future before him that is full of hope and prosperity and your vitriol are lies of the Devil. Out! Get out of Kevin’s head! We do not need you anymore!_

Kevin fell to his knees and pressed his hands to his temples, grimacing. Pressure built behind his eyes, in the battleground.

 _Cultist!_ the twins shouted. _Listen to yourself, Kevin, you’re not a Christian, it’s stupid, it’s religiosity, Catholic school was a joke!_

 _God is more real than you could ever know,_ Norma declared. _And Kevin does not need to fear your kind anymore. He will not live cowed by the likes of you. Kevin is precious to the Lord and you do not get to speak such words of hatred over his life._

“I don’t need to fear,” Kevin murmured under his breath. He’d never said those words before, let alone believed it might be possible.

 _What are you doing, Kevin?_ asked Mary. _Trying to be brave? Hah, like that will work._

 _Wiiiimp,_ Ian crooned.

And Kevin, exhausted from a night of having these horrible little twins slaughtering his self-worth, stepped up next to Norma and said, _I’m fighting back._ He imagined putting his hand on Norma’s slight shoulder.

In the bunkroom, Kevin was frozen in place. In his mind, he and Norma stood against Mary Reynolds and her twin. Heinrich and Mr Pritchard rallied around him.

 _I thought you were necessary,_ he said. _I let you bully me, believing it would stop me from being bullied by others. But I don’t need you now. No one is bullying me and I am done being treated like dirt. Like Norma said, I have a future, and it doesn’t include you._

He aimed his next words the twins, at any other alters he’d created from his urge of self-destruction. He aimed them at his mother.

_I’m not listening to you anymore. You don’t get to hurt me. Get out._

The pool of his mind roared like a geyser and water – the essences of Mary and Ian – sprayed out of its confines and was sucked away, into a void, far from Kevin and the rest of him.

If any drops of them landed back in the pool, well . . . He was Fighting Back now. Come at him. He and Norma and the rest would be there waiting to send them back to that hole of lies and destruction where they came from.      

Kevin let the image of his alters and himself fade and the pool settled again, becoming still and clear. He let out a breath, opened his eyes. Got to his feet. Smiled.

He had a future awaiting him and he didn’t have to hide from it or anyone else anymore.

Yet, things could never be simple, not really, for Kevin Wendell Crumb. Because in the quietness of mind that followed, a question arose which had been drowned out by the Irish twins. It stung like the cut on his jaw. It needed answering.

Kevin went to find Casey.

* * *

 

A few thick cables ran through an open window in the back of the shed to an odd contraption. The contraption stood near the edge of a man-made clearing, and it consisted of a huge metal piston on a tripod, two of the legs having wheels and the other anchored by a pin driven into the dirt. At the wheeled end of the contraption was a metal tray, horizontal, about four feet off the ground, and perpendicular at its centre was a line of four axe heads welded onto a metal slab.

Casey centred a log against the plate at the end of the piston. She pulled a lever. The piston juddered and grumbled and drove the log inch by inch into the sharp edges of the axes. With a crack and crunch, the log split in two. The halves rolled about on the metal tray. She grabbed one of the halves and started the process again, and again, until the log was quartered. Then she picked up the four pieces of firewood and carried them over to the stack against the back of the shed. This was their auxiliary woodpile, for when the one under the porch ran out. Three log lengths deep and as tall as she was, she set the pieces into likely places and went to grab another log from the stack beside the log-splitter. David restocked the stack from time to time as he sawed through felled trees. The ebb and flow of the chainsaw hummed in muted symphony with the birds and chattering insects through Casey’s earmuffs. The white noise along with mindless physical work freed Casey’s brain to roam to places she’d prefer it not to go.

It didn’t go to Uncle John, or Mary or Ian, or Patricia, or even the Beast biting her leg open. No, her brain went to Barry.

Barry, Barry, Barry.

Damn this, she was supposed to be helping Kevin but all she could think about was how much she missed Barry. She missed his kindness and his carefree attitude that hid a sharp mind and impressive talent. He always had the right words to say, as if some part of his consciousness was alert to every hidden cue a person could give and interpreted them perfectly.

And he gave the best hugs.

_“Oh, baby girl, come here.”_

The log splitter jammed on a too-big log. Casey reversed the piston and grabbed the heavy axe leaning against the woodpile. Using all her strength, she swung the blunt end of the blade at the log like a mallet. _Thunk_. _Thunk._ The third time, the log came free.

Out the corner of her eye, she saw the Beast.

Casey whirled, axe raised and ready to strike –

“–Whoa!” Kevin raised his hands, retreating back a couple of paces. “Hey, just me.” He gazed uneasily at the axe, hands still raised.

_No, that’s wrong. You’re supposed to say ‘honey’ and give me a hug and say sorry for frightening me._

Casey let the axe handle slip through her hand. The head thumped onto the grass. She tugged the earmuffs off and grimaced at the loud chainsaw and the endless maraca rainfall of the crickets. “Sorry.”

He cast his eye around the clearing and whistled. Tree stumps cut to a foot from the ground spread out in a large arc behind the shed, piles of sawdust and debris among them. The project began a few months ago as the snow starting letting up and the frozen trees thawed out. When it was only Dan coming up here, he’d chop two trees and that had him set for a year. Four people living indefinitely required more industrious lumber production. He showed them the ropes of the rusting log-splitter and how to use a chainsaw without cutting off a body part and left them to it.

When David said, “Better get those trees cut before they dry out too much,” that morning, Casey happily volunteered to go with him. She had learned the technique of doing things when life got complicated from him – old Casey used to run away from home to escape her problems. New Casey hacked at her problems with an axe.

Sawdust sprayed in the air. David was trying to saw through a tree as wide as he was tall, a huge cylinder some forty metres long that stretched from one end of the clearing to the other, held in place by the stumps of younger trees. It was impossible to imagine how much the thing could weigh, even stripped off all its branches. Tons. Many, many tons. This was the sort of tree taken apart in industrial sawmills, not by four people with two chainsaws and one log-splitter between them. They’d needed Ranger Dan up here when they felled it and even then it had been terrifying to do. But David insisted.

Some of the trees they stripped of bark, to be used in building and David’s carpentry business. Others they left the bark on, to be crumpled up and spat out in pieces by the log splitter, or burnt in the fireplace. This tree in particular retained its rough outer coating, full of knots and whorls and a curious array of score marks near its broken base, where the shards of tree that had clung to the stump stuck out like so many needles. Dozens of the score marks, cuts a hand wide, dug into the bark at the height of a grown man.

David was cutting through them with the chainsaw. Or, at least, trying to. The chainsaw was finding the old tree tougher than its younger peers. It grunted, the revving growing intermittent.

Casey kicked chunks of bark out of her way and approached Kevin. She peeled off the workman gloves.

“What’s up?” she asked, using the gloves to slap splinters from her knees. The chainsaw cut out fully, though conversation wasn’t any easier with the screeching of the insects.

“I wanted to ask you something,” said Kevin. He kept his eyes trained on David, watching the man lay a hand across the lines in the bark.  

“Now?”

“It’s about the twins.”

 _Ah,_ thought Casey. _Crap._

That was when David noticed them – or, rather, noticed Kevin – and waved them over.

“We better help.” Casey picked her way over, weaving in amongst the tree trunks and finding the path with the least sawdust and bark bits. The smell of resin was strong in the clearing, heady and intoxicating and on that day, where there was no wind, it lingered and coated every pore. A long, long soak in the hot spring was all that would get it off.

“Isn’t he super strong?” asked Kevin. “Why does he need our help?”

“Even the Overseer has limits,” Casey replied over her shoulder. She arrived at David’s area of carnage, where the sawdust was up to her knees and random logs lay scattered like poker chips. On the other side of the ancient lodgepole pine was a pile of branches full of cones and needles half the height of the barn, ready to be stripped and used for carpentry or kindling. David rested against the tree, waiting for them, not even sweating despite the morning’s labour.

“We’re going to need Luke for this one,” he said.

Casey nodded, partly expecting it. Luke would be the most helpful here – they’d put him on firewood duty as a way to get him to stop talking and he’d taken to it like a duck to water. Seeing his skill with an axe was almost terrifying.

“Luke?” asked Kevin.

“He’s very good with chopping trees,” Casey explained. “No bad memories either so it’s not like . . .”

“The twins,” Kevin finished. “That’s what I wanted to talk about. How did they come out yesterday?”

David looked as if he would happily leave Casey to do the talking, but she cut through _that_ plan by saying, “You explain. I can’t say their names.”

Though normally so mellow and unruffled, a glint of the Overseer came into David’s eye that moment. But this was Casey Cooke who had hugged the Beast into submission. She would not be cowed by empty threats.

His groan of annoyance might have been inaudible, but the dull thud of the chainsaw hitting the ground wasn’t. In quick, resigned motions, the gloves were stripped off, shoved in a back pocket, and he crossed his arms. It was hard to believe he had ever been anything but a lumberjack homesteader. “Patricia,” he said.

Kevin’s face slackened. “Patricia?”

“Do you remember what the twins said to us?”

“I – uh –” he floundered. “They were being . . .”

 _They were trying to convince him to murder himself. Doesn’t leave much room for combing through memories,_ Casey realised.

“Think back,” said David. “Last night.”

Kevin concentrated, gaze turned inward. It was a look familiar to them from the times when an alter had an internal conversation with another. Sometimes Casey couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that those moments would never happen again.

Did she know Kevin? Really, truly know him? She knew the idea of him – the tragic, traumatised boy who had recreated himself twenty-three different ways whom she had met and known and catalogued.

Mary and Ian and Patricia had left her shaken – it was easy to focus on the nicer alters and think of the others as aberrations. She’d hoped it would be the case, and from the way Kevin was this morning, it seemed like her hopes had won out. He didn’t seem bitter or twisted up inside by the Irish twins. He looked in control, or had, anyway, until this bombshell.

Oh, she wanted Barry. He would know how to deal with Kevin. He and Dennis _knew_ Kevin, actually knew him, more than she did. She’d met Kevin only twice before he woke up a few days ago and suddenly she was questioning the plan. What if he went over to Patricia’s side in the end? What if this was all for nothing?

Barry would know what to do, what to say. Barry never doubted her once.

Casey hugged herself, fist pressed against the bullet wound in her abdomen. She couldn’t afford to have misgivings. She just had to hope that she, David, Joseph, and the alters they’d worked with would win out against those darker parts of Kevin.

Everyone had a dark side and few succumbed to it. This was Kevin’s chance to try again and Casey Cooke’s job was to help him make the right choice this time. She could do this.

 _And eventually Barry will come out, remember. He’s still in there. Remember what he said, Casey – all their love for you is within Kevin, is part of Kevin. You_ know _him, better than he knows himself._

She sucked in a breath, tasting the resin-laden air of the clearing, and tried to calm herself.

“No,” Kevin breathed, Philadelphia accent stronger than ever. “She’s _still there_? I thought you integrated them.”

“We couldn’t get her,” Casey explained. “Hed–” She stopped herself and pleaded with David with her eyes.

“Hedwig and Barry, the ones who control the light?” he jumped in. “They had her chained up, her and the Beast. We hoped it would be the last we saw of her.”

“You left her there?”

“We didn’t know what to do. Even B- – even your main alter didn’t have any ideas. We’re sorry.”

Kevin sat on a nearby stump, hunched over, clasped hands pressed against the top of his skull. “This isn’t happening,” he muttered.

Grunting, David crouched in front of the younger man and slapped a hand on his shoulder. “You’re not in that basement anymore. You’ve got us too.”

“And David can take whatever the B – David can handle anything.”

David gave her a wry smirk, a lopsided twist of the lips. “Anything you can throw, anyway. I leave the counselling to Casey.”

Kevin’s head jerked up. “You’ll tell me next time, right? When she appears?”

“’Course.”

“I never should have kept it from you,” said Casey. “Forgive me?”

“Of course I do,” Kevin replied, frowning at her. “You think I wouldn’t?”

How could she answer that?

“Right,” said David, sitting back on his heels. “I wanna get this tree done by the end of the day. You gonna help?”

“I don’t know –”

“Yeah, you do. Or, Luke does.”

“Luke?”

“Big guy, one of the stronger alters. He tends to run his mouth so we got him chopping firewood to give him something to concentrate on.”

“To shut me up?”

David said, “Eh, tactical teaching.”

“Fair enough. Any warnings?”

“Not that I can think of. Casey?”

She shook her head.

“Cool. Sure. Let’s get this done with.” He stood, clapping once.

She couldn’t believe how well he’d taken the information about Patricia. She smiled, relieved beyond words. “Okay. Meet Luke.”

* * *

_“Yo, this tree is insane? What’s with the markings, though? Someone testing their knife skills, ‘cause I gotta say, there are better ways to do it. I had this butterfly knife in high school and my man Richie taught me to do all those tricks with the handle and whatever and dude, it was dope, I got so fast –”_

_“Luke?”_

_“Casey!” Luke whistled in appreciation. “Damn, you are fine, girl. I have been waiting to meet you for ages. Hot as Hell, that’s what you are. I see why Barry likes you. What’s up? What we doing? Oh, cool, an axe, you want me to cut down this tree, because I’ve never used an axe before but I’m willing to try, a’right? Lumberjacks are cool, so cool, Richie showed me this vid once of this lumberjack competition and I was like dude, what the Hell, that’s not even possible! And he was like, nah, uh, my dad is a lumberjack and he’s epic, and I couldn’t believe him so he showed me this video from when he visited his dad at the lumbermill and you should_ see _those machines.” Luke whistled again. “It’s insane. Hey, hey, that's what those marks are? You guys try to chop the tree already without me because that’s a weird as way to do it, you know what I’m saying?”_

_“Those were made by my father.” This came from David Dunn, that unbreakable dude who fought the Beast and almost won. Serious kudos to him, for real. He, along with Casey and Luke and Joseph and a man Luke knew to be Ranger Dan, stood before a tree in a clearing of stumps. The tree was the tallest around, soaring up so high Luke got a crick in his neck just looking at it. At his eye level, dozens of vertical lines dug through the bark, wrapping right around the trunk._

_“Mad respect, bro,” said Luke. “Does your father need some tips on woodchopping or something?”_

_“No. He made those every time he came up here,” David explained._

_“You come up here with ‘im? This is one sweet vacation spot, let me tell you. I’ve always wanted to try mountain biking but,” he shrugged, “city kid. Me and the boys would talk about things we’d do if we got out of the city but Mom would never . . .” Luke trailed off. He couldn’t pinpoint why his mother wouldn’t let him go out, only that she never would. It frustrated the Hell out of his boys at school when he tried to explain._

_But how could he explain he’d never had a proper conversation with his mother to them? He was the skinny white boy hanging with the black kids, using his quick mouth and enthusiasm as a camouflage to avoid being bullied. He knew high school, it was his kingdom. He knew the lay of the land and he knew he shared this body with Ansel and Orwell and Samuel to get through the day, whether in music class or studies or lunch time. He knew who was who and how to keep his popularity and not let others guess that it wasn’t just Luke who held the consciousness. What he didn’t know was his own home life, except what Barry told him; don’t talk about it. Good enough for him. He had enough to worry about with high school._

_David reached out to touch one of the marks, tracking the gouge and where the bark had thickened at the edges. “He spent most of the year up here while I grew up.”_

_“He did go home in the end,” said Dan. “When you had the accident. He figured out what was most important.”_

_“Accident?” asked Casey._

_“Nearly drowned,” said David. “Some kids at school pushed me in the pool. I was ten.” He cracked a grin. “Chubby kid too back then.”_

_Dan chuckled. “I saw the photos.”_

_“How old were you back then?” David asked him._

_“In my twenties. Your dad taught me everything I know.”_

_“Huh.” David hefted his chainsaw. “Glad he taught someone something. Time to bring this old thing down.”_

_“You sure?” asked Dan. “He chose not to cut this one down when we built the shed. It’s the oldest tree for miles.”_

_“Everything’s got to fall sometime. Better now than during a storm.”_

_Luke was uncharacteristically quiet. He was absorbing, understanding. David Dunn had an absent father in his childhood. What are the odds? According to Barry, so did he – or, rather, Kevin did. Huh._

_Then Dan slapped an axe into Luke’s hands and said, “Time to learn to chop wood, boy.”_

_“Rad,” said Luke._

* * *

It neared the end of a long day.

That memorial to a father's abandonment of his son was gone, stripped of bark and hewn into long beams that waited in the shed. The last of the logs that weren't useful for building were being chopped and split for the woodpile by two axes and the log splitter. The chainsaws roared no more. The crickets still screeched.

Kevin could see why they had Luke chopping firewood. The guy never stopped talking. He was a veritable fountain of words, most of them pointless, and they came out in a stream of self-important drivel. Chopping wood was one of the only ways to shut him up.

Kevin slammed the axe into the quarter and reduced the log to six clean sections in quick succession. He lifted another log onto the chopping block.

Luke was pretty cool, though. He’d learned from the black kids at school how to sweet talk his way out of trouble. In the tradition of America, those kids got more of the flack than others, which meant they knew how to talk down a bad punishment and get out of it where possible. Luke picked that up and got good at it.

Kevin admired the guy. He smiled as Luke's knowledge joined the rest in the pool and provided more details from high school that Kevin didn’t know. From being bullied in primary school by Ian and Mary, and then absorbing their identities into himself – something about avoiding punishment by punishing himself first, which seemed backward beyond belief to him now – he’d gone to a local public high school and managed to camouflage himself into the music group and the local hood boys and get through relatively unscathed, popular even. The more you know. He wondered if, in a different life, he might have been a world class actor.

He drove the axe into the chopping block and collected the pieces of wood from where they’d landed. Casey glanced up when he passed the log-splitter. She said something he couldn’t hear above earmuffs and the chainsaw. He tossed the firewood onto the stack and gave her a grin bigger than usual. He wanted to whistle and say, _damn, girl, you looking better than ever,_ but, as with Ansel, he beat it down. If he got to pick and choose his characteristics from the array before him, he certainly wasn’t going to choose ones that made Casey uncomfortable.

The log on the splitter jammed. Kevin took a step forward, about to offer help, when she hefted an axe and freed the log in three hard knocks, hair flying, expression set in determination. The girl wasn’t just beautiful, she was strong too. _Damn, girl._

He looked down.

Saw the ragged rip of scar tissue across her left calf. Remembered Casey's conversation with Mr Pritchard.

_Beast. Cannibal. Impure._

Patricia was alive inside him, was she? Well, she and that bloody Beast could go to Hell and he’d happily kick them there. He wasn’t letting them touch a hair on Casey’s head ever again if he had anything to do about.

And of all the people in the world who could do something, Kevin Wendell Crumb was at the top of that list.

Kevin set another log on his chopping block.

_WHAM._

_Be careful, Kevin,_ warned Norma. _Hatred and anger aren’t the answer._

 _They were for God,_ he replied.

_WHAM._

_God is uniquely able to be angry and still be pure in his motives. Humans cannot do the same. It’s better to leave the righteous anger up to him._

_WHAM._

_You were angry before at Mary and Ian._

_WHAM._

_You cannot let it rule you. Anger does terrible things when it’s left to fester. Look at Casey’s leg again. Anger untamed becomes rotten. It destroys everything it touches. You must come in the opposite spirit. Love thy enemies._

_WHAM._

_Easier said than done, Norma._

He set another log in place.

_WHAM._

_But it must be done._

_WHAM._

_Or Patricia and the Beast will never stop hurting people,_ she murmured.

_WHAM._

_Be the bigger man, Kevin. Love them, not because they deserve, but because they need it._

_WHAM_.

That’s when Heinrich spoke up. Kevin imagined him sitting in a leather armchair, petting a cat and swirling vodka in a glass as he spoke his wisdom.

 _They need compassion and love?_ he said, thick accent swimming through the syllables like they were made of molasses. _Then shove it down their throat._

_WHAM._

It might be Luke’s influence, but Kevin couldn’t help thinking – _damn, he was cool._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Less Casey and Kevin this chapter (but, oh boy, does the next chapter make up for it). Sorry again for the wait. Hopefully this is of a better standard than my latest chapters. I got overwhelmed with the pressure of writing to a deadline and it started freaking me out, which is never a good place for creativity. It took a few days before I remembered 'oh wait, I love writing. I can write ~2000 words every day because I enjoy it, whether people are reading it or not' and now the words are flowing again. Yay!
> 
> Fun fact: in the first draft of this, I had Casey and David and Kevin rolling the giant tree using a 2 metre straight crowbar and David Dunn Strength(TM). Then I realised the tree weighed 57 metric tonnes and that wasn't physically possible for anyone except Superman or industrial sawmill equipment and decided on this path of chop chop chopping. (Other fun fact, I spent all of Saturday using the log splitter Casey uses in this. Oh my goodness, it was fun. There were eight of us doing so many many trees. Fun fun fun!)
> 
> Until next time, my lovelies. God Bless and good night (and tell me if there are any mistakes!)


	11. Polly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Murphy's Law, revised for Superheroes: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, and generally for your family members. 
> 
> Meanwhile, Kevin learns valuable lessons in the value of open communication and consequences of bad decision making.

David, Casey, and Kevin pushed the heavy log-splitter into the corner of the shed, next to the beams of pinewood from David’s father’s tree. Fading twilight, yellow and gold and bronze, swirled on dust motes around them. It cast no shadows and made the pale wood in the shed glow.

David placed his hand on the beams, patting them. He’d create beauty from pain. 

“And we’re done,” said Kevin. “Dinner?” 

“I’ll catch up in a bit,” said David. As they left, he called after them, “Bonfire tomorrow! And tell me when Joe gets back!”  

“Got it!” said Casey.  

Outside, the world was the same eerie tinge of yellow touching everything. Most especially, it touched the place where the old pine had been, a column of light that seemed just a little bit brighter than the rest of the clearing.  

“Dinner?” Kevin said to Casey, ready to placate the ache in his stomach with homemade pasta. He could whip up a sauce, they had plenty of tomatoes in the glasshouse, and a nice summer salad, the last of the venison on the side . . . 

“Cool,” Casey yawned. “I need to check on the solar panels. After dinner, we could go to the hot spring.” She sighed, stretching her arms. “We deserve it.”  

Ansel purred.  

Rakel perked up.  

 _Oh no,_ thought Kevin.  

* * *

To Jackson’s credit, it wasn’t the worst internet café in the universe. There was one in Waiouru, New Zealand, with a graffitied logo of a blue duck and comic sans in faded fluorescent orange that had been closed down almost as soon as it was built, becoming the local stomping ground for vandals and bored youths who took shelter under the mouldering veranda.  

Jackson’s internet café had known the rush of customers in its time, especially during tourist season when skiers would check their emails before and after careening down the nearby slopes. Situated between an Indian restaurant and a motel, both made of the same dark brown weatherboards, _Net Rush_ stuck out as an off-yellow eyesore with @ symbols fixed around the edges of the picture frame windows. A sign swung above the door declaring it to have  _the fastest Internet in town._ Joe was certain the motel’s WiFi left  _Net Rush_ in the dust.  

Unlucky for him, he had no cell phone or computer to use the motel’s WiFi and thus he was forced into  _Net Rush_ , with its rolling chairs that trailed grey thread to get trapped in the wheels, the peeling posters of the Matrix, Blade Runner, and Tron, and the Macintosh desktops from 2008. A green neon sign of the café’s name flickered on the wall. Café was a misnomer. There had been a café, once. A curving laminated counter with a dusty till and coffee machine were all that remained of it.  

A man sat behind the counter, the top of his balding head level to it. He retained the single nice chair of the dozen there, and leaned back while reading the town newsletter and stroking a salt and pepper moustache. The paper sign taped to the inside of the door said _Open Tuesdays, 11 am – 4 pm._ Those bushy eyebrows had raised in surprise – and not a little suspicion – when Joe walked in and asked how much to use a computer for the day; and this was after he’d waited in the truck for two hours for the place to open. 

 _Probably thinks I’m looking at porn._ Joe sighed, clicking irritably on the white bubble-shaped mouse and waiting for Google to load. He sat at the left front window, opposite a gap between the tourism office and a clay sculpture gallery that gave a peek of one of the hills that bounded the town. It was lush and bright under the midday sun, covered in pine trees and vast tracks of grass that would give way to snow lanes in a few months. The café itself was hideous but at least the view was beautiful. It made the near dial-up-slow internet less painful.  

Also, this computer was in full sight of the manager, to show the guy that  _no_ Joe Dunn was not a wastrel.  

Finally,  _finally_ , the Google search bar loaded.  _Yes_. Every minute wasted chewed through his limited funds.  

His fingers settled on the keyboard.  

Now what? 

A bell dinged in his mind, accompanied by the connected lightbulb turning on. He typed. 

 _Doctor Ellie Staple Psychiatrist_.   

* * *

While Casey was off wandering in encroaching night, Kevin stood at the kitchen bench and went through the motions of making dinner. The salted water boiled, waiting for the pasta that had sat in the fridge since yesterday, the salad was ready in its wooden bowl, tiny cherry tomatoes nestled on beds of grated carrot and lettuce. Kevin was at the stage of browning the venison in a cast iron skillet next to the small pot of tomato sauce that bubbled like a mud pool. 

The venison smelled delicious, warm and earthy, and combined with the acidity of the of the tomato sauce and the tender pasta, tonight’s dinner was going to be sublime. Even better, he could grate some of that parmesan cheese David and Joe had brought back. 

And that was all well and good, if it wasn’t for the hot spring plan.  

How do you tell a girl, _sorry, can’t go swimming, I’ll become aroused at the sight of you to a point of discomfort but I have no desire of having sex with you. It’s because of my trauma._

If he was honest with himself, if anyone would understand it’d be Casey.  

Which, in some ways, made it worse.

The venison sizzled. He scraped the cubes off the pan and into a bowl, then, on a whim, he grabbed a knife, put the meat onto the chopping board he’d used for the vegetables, and started turning the venison into thin slivers and strings. It was too hot to touch but he didn’t care.  

How could he get around this? He needed some way of keeping the – ahem – horse asleep and slumbering for an entire evening. He’d tried cooing to it, saying,  _Your time will come, I understand you, you’re part of every human being_ yet the fear remained that he was going to screw up and Casey would run screaming.  

Obliviousness was what he needed. Innocence of what a girl like Casey could make a guy like him feel.  

 _Yeah, because she’s wicked hot_. That was Luke and Ansel talking. They were being less than helpful tonight.  

Kevin idly wondered when he’d stop thinking of them as individual personalities and just thoughts from himself. Maybe never. It would be a shame to forget them.  

Innocence, innocence, innocence. Norma’s contribution was  _When there is temptation, there is always a way out of it._ What way out? Casey was going to come back any minute with David and Joseph, if Joe came back tonight - in fact, where was he?

The four, or three, of them would eat dinner, and Casey would announce the trip to the hot springs, and then Kevin would be too embarrassed to explain why he couldn’t go in front of  _David Dunn_ _._  

Argh.  

He grabbed the rolling pin from its hidey hole beside the breakfast trays and forced the pasta flat.  

Innocence, innocence, innocence. Where could he find innocence in himself? 

Inside himself. 

What if . . . no. It was a fluke. That Heinrich situation had been a once in a blue moon kind of deal.  

Unless he could do it again. 

He’d met eleven of the alters and knew of six others on the list, whether by reputation like Patricia and the Beast, or by other alters’ memories, like Barry, Hedwig, Dennis, and Jade. The ones that remained a mystery were Orwell, Goddard, Polly, B.T., Kat, Felicia, and Jelin. Could his answer lie among them? 

Norma had uncertain memories of these unknowns. In the place with the chairs and the light, she saw the ideas of the alters – the flashing of glasses, little feet in Mary Jane shoes swinging above the floor, a tall, lanky boy who huddled on his chair and never moved. An older woman in a poodle skirt. A teenaged girl in a leotard. The last was the most ambiguous, as they sat on the other side of the light to Norma and were wreathed in shadow and the feeling of bitterness.  

Luke added to the images, having been seated further around the circle from Norma – he knew of the bright purple of Kat’s poodle skirt and the way Felicia would flex and stretch in her chair until it was her turn to cartwheel into the light. Luke watched as the more developed alters took the light time and again and on occasion, he would be given access to watch what they did, a sort of second sight that came from Barry.  

Luke sat next to B.T., the boy with the thousand yard stare. Luke was one of the alters more privy to details of the group – it helped when blending in at school so he wouldn’t be tripped up by holes in the patchwork of the school day. Luke knew B.T. was a reservoir for the trauma, as Samuel was a reservoir for knowledge.  

Kevin backtracked from B.T.  

He focused on Polly, the five-year-old in the pink Mary Janes and a bow in her hair. She swayed in her chair, little pink hands clasping the edges of the seat and humming a lullaby only she knew. Innocence. Pure innocence. He hoped.  

Could it work?  

He mixed the shreds of venison into the sauce as a filling. In teaspoonfuls, he dolloped the filling onto the sheet of pasta in two rows spaced far apart, cut the pasta in half, and folded each half over a line of filling. He patted the pasta down around the hillocks of venison and sauce and started cutting out the ravioli parcels.  

He closed in on Polly, focused on her and her shoes and her bow and her hands. Her face was blurry so he let that slide and instead transfixed himself with the heart-wrenching need for her to come out. This was life and death, a terminal situation, as with Heinrich and the lake. Everything would fall apart if Polly didn’t arise.  

 _Am I making a mistake?_  

Too late now. Curling his lips around the word and attempting as close a copy to Casey’s voice as he could, he said, “Polly.” 

Polly, the five-year-old girl with a bow in her hair, poured herself into the pool, along with too few memories of Kevin’s mother. 

* * *

Joe strode from  _Net Rush_ , stripping off his jacket in the seventy-nine degree heat, head awhirl. Conspiracy theories and witness descriptions and buried reports and archived articles mingled together and drew lines between themselves and tangled up in an ever-growing three dimensional spider’s web.  

Everything left a trace, whether it was in a person’s biography or a class photo, a news report or folklore tale; somewhere, something remained as a relic. It could be as big as the pyramids or as small as a microbe in Antarctica. Galileo looked up at the stars, those tiny glittering lights, and changed how humanity viewed themselves in the universe. With enough investigation, truth would out. It was a law as strong as gravity.  

The law worked again in Joe’s favour that day. Mr Pritchard had been right. 

He had to tell someone. This was bigger than learning that Elijah Price, in sabotaging the Eastrail 177, had created the Beast.  

Dan, he could tell Dan, and he could get Dan to take him to the tourism office because if his father really had been videoed and streamed online, that was trouble. He wanted to double check that the tourism office worker had deleted the video for good, perhaps find the IP addresses for the people who'd seen the clip, track them down. 

Joe got in the truck and glanced at the tourism office, with its scenic photos of Jackson Hole resting in the windows and the shuffle of people behind them, ordering drinks from the coffee shop and talking with men wearing red vests. It was a big building. Beyond the vast lobby full of taxidermy animals and information displays, a frosted glass door led into the back offices, no doubt where the friend of Dan had the video stored.  

Joe considered going in. He checked his watch. Four-oh-four. He had time . . . 

Then again, better not draw attention to himself. It was the off season in Jackson, meaning nearly everyone here was a resident and too curious of newcomers. He’d come back with Dan as an intermediary. 

That being decided, Joe got in the truck, pulling a face because it was stale and baking inside, and wound down the windows. Off to Dan’s, who lived on the edge of town, then the tourism office, then home to dinner and to clap Kevin on the back for his hunch.  

Joe grinned as he drove. Mr Pritchard strikes again. It was almost hilarious.  

He turned the corner.  

He didn’t see the black SUV park outside the tourism office, nor the man in the cream suit and the woman in pressed slacks get out and walk inside.  

There’s hasn’t been a murder in Jackson, Wyoming for over a decade.  

That record was broken that day. 

* * *

Casey froze when she came to the door. Kevin saw her out the corner of his eye, aghast and confused and wary. She stepped over the threshold, saying, “Kevin? Are you okay?” 

“I’m great!’ Kevin grinned at her. The pasta lay forgotten, the water boiling itself to nothing. He leant his hip on the counter and clasped his hands together. Polly gave him the urge to jump onto the bench and start swinging his feet, which Bernice quickly crushed. “Did you know Mom used to make me sandwiches?”  

“Polly?” Casey was horrified. Kevin frowned at her, disturbed by the reaction. His mood, transfigured by Polly into one of cheerful innocence, was suddenly shaken. A crack appeared. The lovely memories of Polly with Kevin’s mother were darkened by a cloud.  

His mother once took him for a walk through the park and talked about how she and his father met. His mother used to sing with him while she mopped the kitchen floor, her voice guttural and deep like a jazz singer’s. He remembered his mother doing up the laces of his best Sunday shoes and tucking him into a suit jacket. She had smiled like the sun, saying, “Clean as a whistle. You’re going to grow up to be so handsome, just like your father.”  

Casey watched him, standing still as if he might break if she approached. Waiting.  

Waiting for the shoe to drop. 

It hit the floor with a crash. 

Polly was pretty and pleasant, with little to say and that was it. The central axis of her were the memories of his mother's goodness and there were  _so few_ of them. And they ended at five, when Polly stopped aging. His mother had never once been nice to him after his father died.  

Kevin didn't want to believe it. This was it? This was his all that was left of his mother's goodness? There had to be more. She couldn't have been that much of a monster.

Kevin’s head hung down as he turned his gaze inwards, searching through Polly. So little, too little. His mother’s smile darted forward then faded away, a fleeting thing, able to be counted for how often it appeared.  

He looked for her further, further, brushing through Ansel and Luke as well, Bernice and Norma, Mr Pritchard and Heinrich. He found the dark place of chairs and light, he found the moment when Barry in the beanie stood up and said, “We never should have listened to the Beast.” A lot of clamour came after that and Kevin couldn’t hear it. The memory was fuzzy, altered, like static on a television screen.

Kevin was more confused than ever - why was he only seeing this now? There was Norma and Luke and Ansel and Mr Pritchard and Heinrich among a handful more, standing and talking at each other. Some of the alters remained on the chairs, blankly unmoving, swathed in grey. None of the alters so far had revealed this to him.

That couldn’t be possible. They’d agreed to integrate, to give him their memories. They couldn’t be keeping him in the dark, could they? They didn’t exist as separate entities anymore.  

Except . . . 

In that weird place where people existed and sat but didn’t really, a woman in silken robes of green and gold and palest yellow, smiled at him. An oasis amongst the shouting. She alone was in focus – a presence so sharp Kevin thought he might cut himself upon her.  

“Hello, dear.”  

* * *

Joe pulled up outside ranger Dan’s house. It hid amongst the pines on the side of Jackson Lake, an hour’s drive from the town. The house’s view gazed over the lake, jumping over the islands and peninsulas jutting over the rippling water to ascend the Teton Range, those huge crags of snow and black rock that thrust out of the foothills. The sun set behind them, trickling between the peaks and staining wisps of clouds that lay about their necks, blood red. Shards of sunlight slipped through the cracks and chasms to strike upon the valley floor in golden spotlights, glancing off trees and sparkling on the water.  

Joe got out of the truck, catching his breath under a hazy sky. He paused to take it in. With great effort, he drew his eyes down to the house before him. It was another log cabin, similar to the one in Taylor Valley. The truck, blue and splattered with mud, squatted in the shadows of the garage. Good, Dan was home.  

Knowing where he was likely to be on an evening like this one, Joe went around the side of the house, boots crushing the freshly cut grass of the lawn that rolled to the water’s edge. Dan’s house sat at the very tip of one of the peninsulas, where he could watch the world unhindered. And Dan himself was right where Joe suspected – on the back porch, rocking on the swing seat he built for his kids decades earlier, nursing a mug of tea and watching the sunset. Steam twirled from his mug into the cooling air. He wore sunglasses to combat the burning sunlight across his eyes.

“Joe, my boy!” said Dan. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”  

Joe checked his watch. Ten past five. The tourism office would be closed by now, and it was getting on time to get back to the cabin.

Or he could stay here for the night and go to the tourism office in the morning and avoid a trip to the valley. They wouldn’t worry, surely. His dad knew what he was doing. 

“Could I join you?” he asked Dan.  

“Sit up here,” said Dan, shuffling over on the seat and holding it steady for Joe to join him. It didn’t so much as groan under the added weight. Dan built things to last.  

Joe leaned back, taking the sunglasses from his pocket, and watched the sunset. He thought about bringing up the conspiracy and spoiling the brief respite with the madness that followed Kevin and his dad wherever they went.

Then Dan started a story about climbing Eagle Rest Peak with Joe’s grandad when they worked together, pointing at the peak in the centre of the array and mapping out the route they took with his finger.  

 _It can wait until tomorrow,_ thought Joe. 

* * *

A black SUV drove along the edge of Jackson Lake, seeking a turn off.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TOWRTA: Huh, plot. What'd'ya know? Told you Kevin was going to have a bad time. For those who don't know me as a writer, this is what my writing usually is - drama, intrigue, death, chaos, mind-bending weirdness. It's a riot of a time. I'm so glad you guys get to experience it :) For those who thought this story was going to keep on trucking as it had with Ansel and Bernice, well . . . Patricia doesn't play fair (and I'm not that sort of author). 
> 
> I spent a heck of a lot of time mapping out Jackson, Wyoming today and understanding the positioning of the Teton Range so I could write those few lines of description. Such is the writer's life. Now, off to my first university class of the year! I'm an ex-med student now doing one first year english paper in amongst working part time. Ahh, life is so much easier now. 
> 
> Until next time.  
> Buh-bye!


	12. Kat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin's in a pickle, Casey's got problems of her own, and Joe is . . . well. Where is Joe, that's the question. But at least Kevin and Casey are solid, right?

Kevin fled from his own head and found himself staring into Casey’s worried eyes. It took a moment to understand the world outside himself – he had sat at some point, leaning against the kitchen cabinets, and Casey knelt at his side, her hand on his shoulder.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He didn’t know. “I saw her. Patricia.”

If Casey was the type of girl to gasp she might have then. Instead, her eyes narrowed and she moved to be in front of Kevin. She took both his hands, though whether to ground himself or her, he didn’t know, and asked, “What did she say?”

She was so matter of fact that Kevin, on the cusp of either laughing hysterically or crying uncontrollably, could reply with matching composure, “‘Hello, dear’. That’s it. She’s messing with my memories, Casey.” Their fingers were interlaced, locked tight, callous to matching callous formed by months of labouring side by side. He had this, at least. He and Casey were solid, no matter who else occupied his brain.

His hands were shaking.

Casey stroked his thumbs with hers while she thought, eyes unfocused on his denim knees. At length she asked, “How did you bring Polly out?”

He swallowed around the lump in his throat. “Norma and Luke have memories of her. I focused on those.”

“And you said her name?”

He nodded. He didn’t want to say he’d imitated Casey’s voice. It embarrassed him now, even though that was stupid. He slid past it, “But there’s a memory that’s fuzzy. I think it’s when the alters decided to integrate.”

Casey gazed at him through her lashes, piercing brown eyes trapping. He might sit here forever, if she’d let him, watching her in this little space against the kitchen cabinet while the world dimmed outside. Forget himself. Sink into her skin and hide there, covered, safe, away from this ghastly light.

“What’s happening in the memory?” she asked.

“Barry says they never should have listened to the Beast and a bunch of them start talking, but it’s like when a radio isn’t quite on the right channel. Then . . . Patricia was there.”

“She was in focus?”

He nodded again.

“What is she doing?” Casey wondered under her breath, thumbs moving back and forth. “Why is she sabotaging this?”

“She hates me.”

She shook her head immediately. “No, that’s not it. She’s deluded herself into thinking the Beast is your saviour. We . . . we need to talk to her. Convince her that integration is the answer.”

Ice trickled down Kevin’s back. Patricia would take over. He’d lose himself inside of her. He might be enough to banish Mary and Ian, but Patricia was an altogether different monster. Kevin would rather never be near that part of himself ever again. Let her be kept locked up, he thought, let her be relegated to a bad impulse hidden in the shadows, thought of in the weird hours of the night when time has no meaning except interminability.

Let Kevin Wendell Crumb ignore at least her, and ignore everything she represented, because in the sharp sweetness of her smile he saw the outline of the Beast, that unknowable creature of hatred embodying the twisted philosophies of his inmost self. Patricia herself was terrifying for what came after her.

_Cannibal._

What did someone else’s blood taste like?

He didn’t want to know, ever.

Casey might have read this in his eyes or she might have felt it in the twitching of his fingers or she might simply know the workings of his heart, because she said, “But not now. You have other parts of yourself to meet first.” She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, tender lips on the bristles growing since yesterday. “It’s going to be fine.” Her breath wafted over his ear. “You’ll see.”

Joint by joint, he unfolded and stood and tugged Casey up with him, her hands rising first, her lithe body following him into the few inches of space. His breath caught. He inhaled. He smelled steam and salt. “Dinner.”

“I’ll set the table,” said Casey, unlinking the two of them.

Then the front door opened, admitting David and his frown as he looked about the cabin. Beyond him, the night was black and full of the ghostly trunks of lodgepole pines.

“Where’s Joe?” he asked.

* * *

Overnight, a drizzle enveloped Taylor Valley. It billowed under cover of darkness as a haze that made everything damp and dripping, drifting between the trees on indifferent gusts. Eerie and muted, the valley was silent except for the endless cascading of the waterfall. No birds cried, no game walked along the deer paths, no shadows shrunk with the rise of the smothered sun. Only stillness and watery, grey air.

Kevin stared out into this nothingness – purgatory? Heinrich seemed to imagine this as purgatory, while Norma declared the notion of purgatory as not true scripture – and hoped that Joe was all right. The porch, darkened by moisture, ended at a wall of mist, within it the hidden glasshouse, off to the right at the back of the cabin. Two days ago Ansel had been playing guitar while Joe and Casey built the structure. Now it was gone, just as Joe was. Just as Ansel was, in some respects, buried beneath the slap of Patricia. How could things change in so short a time?

David joined him at the window. The man’s face bore the remnants of a bad night’s sleep. Kevin knew he looked the same.

“He’ll be all right,” David said. He didn’t sound as if he believed it. Kevin couldn’t answer. He kept staring and hoping to hear the sound of the truck.

For a moment, a figure of a man moved in the mist. His heart leapt.

But no. It was only him, his shadow projected by the cabin’s light and made alive by the swirling vapour. Disappointment settled into place and Kevin turned from the window. The guitar leaned on the couch, and he contemplated picking it up – or picking a book from the shelves or the sketchbook from the table or the flour from the pantry. He padded to the dining room table to sip at the mug of coffee he’d left there. The fire crackled and sparked and its light danced on the walls, combating the gloom both inside and out.

He’d settled into the chair and tasted his first mouthful of stale brew when he glanced at Casey’s bedroom door. She hadn’t come out yet. Why not?

The instinct to go to her was tempered by last night, the kiss that complicated everything. It kept him frozen and thinking, even as David moved about him, collecting hat and jacket and grunting a goodbye, then vanishing to nothing, swallowed, taken like his son.

Minutes went by, unpalatable as his coffee, rife with confusion. A clatter of questions banged about inside – what did Casey think of him? Was he allowed to think about her this way? She was eighteen, he was thirty-one, where did he draw the line? Was he too dependent on her? What did Joe and David think? What had happened to Joe while he was researching?

A statement kept flinging itself at the forefront of his brain. Don’t Do This To Her. She’d given so much already to help him, despite everything he’d done to her; she didn’t deserve the heaviness of his damaged attraction on top of that.

He drank until the coffee ran out.

He sat until it was too long entirely and suspicion won over because Casey was eternally the early riser, he’d cooked her breakfast enough times to know it, so she should be up by now.

Studiously, he cleaned his mug of coffee and set it to dry, dried his hands, and crossed to her pale door. The doe glared at him. Private property, no trespassing, hasn’t she had enough from you men yet?

“Casey?” he murmured. He knocked twice. “You up?”

Casey called, quiet, half-asleep, “Kevin?”

“Yeah?” he said, dragging himself back to the pale door. “Are you okay?”

“I – I need your help.”

He was in her room in an instant and felt the wave of heat before he saw the mess. It was sweltering in there – without a window and the door snuggly shut, the porthole of the fireplace heated the bunkroom to sauna proportions. Sweat trickled down his back and dampened the ends of Casey’s haircut.

Her room was her kingdom, that much was clear. Years of no freedom meant she’d taken to having her space with alacrity, throwing socks and sketches and shirts on every bunk, top or bottom. In the light of the fireplace, he made out hair ties collected in a pile next to hairclips and a brush and comb on one bare mattress, folded washing from a few days before set on another. She had no chest of drawers – instead, cubby holes made from beer crates and boxes built by David were stacked up against the exterior wall to hold her other items. She didn’t have much, but what she did have she spread.

Her bunk was the one furthest from the door, the mirror to his. Naught but a log lay between them as they slept, something he would remember whether he wanted to or not.

The girl was not lying on the bunk as he’d supposed. She was sitting in front of the glowing fireplace porthole, her back way too close to the heated glass. She cast a long shadow that, combined with her untamed hair, hid her expression from view.

A glint. Lying on the blue carpet, an inch from her shins, was the cutthroat razor.

“Take it. Please,” she whispered. Her whole body was tightly bound, on the edge of snapping. He crept through the slow tension of the atmosphere and saw her wide-eyed, guilt-stricken face of anticipatory shame.

He took a knee, carefully pushed the clean blade into the handle and tucked it into his back pocket. Then he examined her from head to toe.

“I didn’t use it,” she said, the strain leaving her voice and replaced by numbness. Kevin wanted to help. He reached out to her as easily as she did for him and she flinched and scrambled out of arm’s reach. The full blazing heat of the porthole blasted Kevin in the face. He grimaced.

“David’s out,” he said. “The cabin’s empty. Let's go outside.” She, to his relief, followed him into the cool air of the porch where they were soaked to the skin in seconds and clear of the oppressive heat.

Casey stretched her arms towards the grey, uncurling from herself. She glanced at him.

“Thanks.”

“What happened?” He wanted to help her as she helped him, so he copied her tone from last night.

She sighed and rubbed her arms. “Nightmares of Uncle John again.”

“Ah.”

“It’s kind of a . . . coping method.” Her lips quirked. “I wasn’t any good at music and Uncle John got angry if he saw me drawing at home – he thought it was wasted money. So, well, I guess the easiest way to deal with things was bring all this,” she waved a hand at herself, “all the pain onto the outside, instead of keeping it bottled up.”

“You’d . . .”

She nodded. “Little nicks here and there. Inside the palm where I could blame it on cooking. And papercuts hurt the most, right?” She bared her hands and exposed the tiny white lines in the creases.

“There aren’t many,” Kevin said before he could stop himself.

“Hands heal well, especially if the cut is small enough. It’s gotten better since coming here, though. I guess the stress of last night . . .” She shrugged, utterly used to dealing with her emotions and actions. Kevin envied her for it.

Kevin also thought tiny cuts on a person’s palm a much better method for dealing with abusive relatives than dissociating into a cannibal. Didn’t mean he had to like it, though. He’d prefer Casey never felt pain over anything at all.

Hesitating, he suggested, “Do you want to go to the hot pool?” He might be able to handle it, for her sake.

“Not today. I want to be here if Joe gets back.”

“Of course.” His shoulders might have slumped in relief.

It was getting cold. The inside of the cabin looked more and more inviting. Yet she was looking towards the glasshouse.

“Casey . . .”

“Do you want to meet another alter?” she asked suddenly.

“Huh – oh, sure. How many good ones are left?”

Deadpan, she said, “They’re all good, Kevin. Some are just misguided.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Misguided. Right.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’ve got an alter who you based off your aunt who used to care for you after school when your mom still worked.”

“I had an aunt?”

“Your dad’s younger sister.”

“Why didn’t she . . .”

“Get custody? She wasn’t . . . well, you’ll see why. She’s harmless, just not the type to take care of kids. Then she left to Canada when you were seven.”

“She left me? How could –”

“You’ll see when you meet her. Unless . . . You could meet someone else, if you want.”

“No. I want to meet her. I want to know.” He needed the diversion. “As long as she isn’t like Patricia.”

Casey laughed. Actually laughed, a short burst of amusement that made the whole world brighter. “No, no, not at all. You remember Lady Bertram from Mansfield Park? You read it a few months ago.”

Samuel dutifully regurgitated Austen’s character – the reposing Lady Bertram with her pug dog who, though caring, was too absentminded and prone to naps to be truly helpful to the heroine as she battled against her more difficult Aunt Norris and her petty, superficial cousins and her slave-owning uncle.

Kevin sighed internally. Why were so many parts of his brain complete fruit loops? But he wasn’t about to say no, not yet anyway.

“Let’s meet her then,” he said.

* * *

Kevin helped Casey tend to the vegetable patch, wrapped up in jackets and lit by a lantern hanging from the centre beam of the greenhouse, the mist melting on the glass, the world outside a blank slate. Casey hummed a tune under her breath that he recognised as one Ansel wrote. Without meaning to, he joined in harmony. It was cosy there, amongst the smell of earth and vegetables.

He tried to pinpoint the moment when Aunty Kath, his father’s younger sister, became Kat, an eccentric alter who stopped to pat every cat she met and would have taken a handful of kibble around in her pocket if she’d been allowed.

Aunty Kath was a nut. An absolute nut, and yet loveable for it, which made Kevin curious about his dad. She’d left before he turned seven and so shouldn’t factor into his mind as much as she did, yet he’d somehow absorbed her – like Mary and Ian – into himself like a mimic, an octopus, becoming her in her absence. She loved paisley and pugs, she wished she could have a cat’s foot keychain, she hugged awkwardly, as if putting her arms around a cloud that wasn’t quite there, and she spent much of her time muttering to herself every thought that came through her head. They were inoffensive, slightly absurd thoughts, about what if might be like to be a cat and what might happen if the world ran out of cats and when she would have her next nap and on what and what she would wear while napping.

Kat was all this, and Kat recalled taking care of a little boy named Kevin when he was young, but she had had to move out of her own home because of intimidating men in blue suits with burgundy ties and close cropped hair, and hadn’t seen Kevin anymore. She hoped he was doing okay. He was such a sweet little boy. Kat seemed to have no understanding of Kevin or the other alters, or even her brother. She never saw the dark place of chairs and light. Barry never spoke with her, the few times she emerged when a cat crossed a Philadelphia footpath.

Carefully, Kevin tried to find that moment when Kat learnt of the integration – not from Casey, but from Barry himself when he said, “We should never have listened to the Beast.” It wasn’t there. Either Kat was one of those alters who hadn't participated in the discussion, or this was Patricia, again, working to keep him ignorant. What was her ploy in all this? If she had a method to her madness, he had yet to see it – this more looked like the scattered, desperate actions of a woman with little power and a lot of anger. Shoving Mary and Ian out, frightening Casey, keeping him from seeing the alters when they agreed to the integration as a group. Destabilisation, yes. With the end of seeing her and the Beast taking over, possibly. Like Hell was he going to let that happen. She was deluding herself. A lot.

 _Let_ was the operative term there, though. She had so much conviction, she might be able to push him out, fragile as he was. Growing stronger, he hoped, every day, but still shaky and unsure of himself. And with the stress of Joe gone and Mr Pritchard’s frantic proclamations of _Conspiracy! Conspiracy! He’s been taken!_ and Ansel and Luke and Rakel much too pleased with the kiss from Casey, Patricia might just find a big enough crack to get through.

He yanked up a carrot and tossed it into the basket by Casey’s knee. It made him smile to watch her as she crouched in the dirt, picking dead leaves off the tomato plants and securing them to the stakes. Every alter who joined him, barring Mary and Ian, made him all the more fond of this girl with her tentative smile. Suddenly he didn’t care if he shouldn’t like her. He couldn’t help it.

“We’re not going to let Patricia win,” he said. “We’ll show her that the integration is the right thing to do.”

Startled, Casey turned. “Of course it is. And she’s part of you, so if you’ve figured that out, she will too. How many carrots have you found?” She shuffled over and crouched beside him, surveying his corner of the greenhouse. Warmth glowed behind his sternum.

They’d be fine. Joe would be trundling up in the truck any minute now, probably with Dan who’d demand his blueberry pie, and they’d find out the conspiracy was only that, a conspiracy. They’d convince Patricia. They’d tame the Beast.

There was nothing to worry about.

* * *

Joe woke up in a room with no windows.

No door either.

A perfect cube made of cinderblocks painted in alternating colours. Blue, red, green, yellow, off-white, and indigo. When he opened his eyes and found himself lying in the centre of the room and staring up at the random array of six colours on square blocks in a square room, he said, “What the heck?” 

The walls could have been the ceiling could have been the floor – the colours and the arrangement and the dimensions were the same. Perhaps eight feet across? That would make the hypotenuse . . . something longer than eight.

Eight squared plus eight squared equalled . . . one hundred and twenty-eight.

The square root of one hundred and twenty-eight was . . . something longer than eight. Eleven squared was one hundred and twenty-one. Twelve squared was one hundred and forty-four. Somewhere between, then. Eleven point something.

See, longer than eight.

He was still in a box room with alternating colours on square cinderblocks. What had happened?

Light came from tubes stuck to the wall lines and floor lines and ceiling lines and cast unshadowed pale over the colours. It created shadows on him alone, vague ones that were nearly cancelled out by the other lights but not quite. Down the thin length of his arm, Joe spied the hollows of his palm and creases in his fingers. There was no colour to his hand, just pure white. Pure as snow.

 _The Black Clover group,_ he thought.

It was cold in this room and he waited on the floor. He realised that other than his head, he couldn’t move. That made sense - he had been paralysed and sedated and he was not scared as he should have been.

Joe had been kidnapped.

Unless this was a dream. That didn’t make sense – he never dreamed. Not one nightmare or psychedelic trip-fest in all his twenty-nine years of living. That was a mercy. Visions of his father losing his powers at some critical moment were more than harrowing while awake.

He breathed and felt his chest move. It was reassuring, to feel the air rush in and out of his lungs and see some part of him respond to his efforts.

His head rolled about on his neck as he attempted to see all parts of the cube room. Not much to see really. Except . . . there was a breeze sweeping through. The breeze came from where his toes pointed, trickling over him in a cool wash. With a groan, he hefted his head and stared long and hard at the end wall.

He’d been wrong before. There was a rectangle among the cinderblocks, four wide, nine high, a gap of three cinderblocks between it and the ceiling. Like a door.

“Hello?” he said to the door, then his neck got tired and he had to relax. He said, “Hello?” again. His voice rasped and croaked and he swallowed around a dry throat. “Anyone there?”

No one replied, not Hedwig or Patricia or Dennis. Not the mysterious Black Clover group he’d discovered through hours of digging. Not even his father.

But his father would come. He was sure of it.

Joe closed his eyes and imagined his father kicking down the cinderblock door and waited for it to happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TOWRTA: I'm always a bit antsy about introspection, which is what a lot of this story is turning into. I'm an action kind of girl, but in reading Persuasion for my uni course my writing style has leaned into inward thinking and I'm struggling to get myself out of it. This story lends itself to introspection by virtue of the subject matter. We're dealing with Kevin's mind, after all. Sigh. You've got to do what the story requires. 
> 
> BTW, for new readers, I haven't abandoned this story, it's just on hold for a bit while I sort out a personal manuscript for publication, as well as a uni paper and the rest of, well, life. I will return to whatever readers I have left when I get the chance. Wait for me!


	13. Goddard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joe's gone, David's going after him, and Kevin and Casey bond over Ol Daddy Overseer and their lack of parental figures. 
> 
> "Love your kid as best as you know how, and then at least they’ll forgive you if you get something wrong."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boom, Baby! I'm back in the house!
> 
> [Insert Emperor's New Groove gif here]
> 
> (Oh, set the scene: it's misty, Joe's been missing all night, Kevin and Casey are picking vegetables in the new greenhouse)

David knocked on the glasshouse door. Casey got up, brushed the dirt from her knees, picked her way through the vegetables, and shoved open the heavy mahogany. “Yeah?”

“I’m going to drive into town, see if I can find where Joe’s got to.”

“Oh,” said Casey. Kevin glanced up from the tomato vines, looking concerned. “Is that necessary?”

David exhaled, spread his hands, non-verbally telling them that he needed to do something because his son was missing and it might be fine but also they’d been theorising about murderous secret groups trying to hunt them down and if he stayed in the woodworking shed for another minute he might go mad and break something that couldn’t be fixed.

Casey had learned a lot in the last six months, including how to interpret David Dunn.

“Okay. We’ll be here when you get back.”

“I sure hope so.” David patted Casey on the shoulder, nodded to Kevin, and departed to the shed, probably to get the old quad bike out. Casey and Kevin exchanged glances.

“I wish my dad was like that,” said Kevin quietly.

Casey quirked a bitter smile. “I know.” She frowned. “You do have an alter who you modelled off your dad, though.”

“Really?” Kevin sat in the dirt, uncaring by this point. He was pretty sure there was no part of him that remained clean. He continued, “Most of the alters are based on people. What’s up with that?”

She shrugged. “You’re good at pretending to be other people.”

“I know.” He smirked. “I should have been an actor.”

Casey tried to join in, to lift the worry that was settling like the mist. “What would you have done? Shakespeare?”

“Probably. I could have been Hamlet.”

“I was thinking Ophelia.”

The joke falls flat, neither of them having paid much attention to Shakespeare in high school English and now too distracted by Joe to care. Casey licks her lips. “Do you want to meet him?”

“What’s he like?”

“. . . He left when you were five which means I’m not sure how much of him is real and how much is based on your imagination.” A flicker of emotion came over her that Kevin could swear was almost a grimace.

“What?” he prodded.

“Nothing.”

“What is it?”

“It’s . . . He’s a bit of a jerk towards women. And boys.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry.”

Bummer. Well, he had Bernice and Norma and Ansel and Luke and Heinrich already, and they were perfectly acceptable in how they treated others. One bad alter wouldn’t ruin that for him. And he’d proved that he could repel the traits of his uglier alters if he wanted to, like with Mary and Ian.

Think of this as training, Kevin. You’re learning to deal with the difficult alters so you can work your way up to Patricia and the Beast. Besides, as Casey said, this version of his father was nothing but the broken-hearted imaginings of a five year old boy.

 _Man, that’s depressing_ , thought Luke.

Kevin sighed. “I have to meet him at some point.”

* * *

When Casey first met Goddard, she knew immediately that she disliked him. And she knew that, in some ways, Kevin’s childhood was even harder than hers had been; she, at least, had good memories of her father. He was her hero, her Superman. The two of them together were a team against the world. If it hadn’t been for Uncle John’s despicable presence, every moment would have been glorious, filled with laughter and inside jokes and him telling her that she had Mom’s eyes and Mom’s smile and Mom’s funny mannerism of chewing her hair when she was nervous. She’d crushed that habit after Uncle John told her he’d been in love with Mom too and that he’d adored it the way she sucked at the ends of her long brown hair, just as Casey did.

Uncle John poisoned so much of her life – a noxious, choking presence, unavoidable. But there had been those moment when she and Dad were alone, without Uncle John, and it was all okay. She held onto those moments when Uncle John was at his worst, a reminder that Uncle John didn’t represent humanity. That there were good men in the world.

Meeting Goddard put into perspective how lucky she’d been to have a dad as wonderful – if oblivious – as hers had been. Goddard had grown into existence in the years after Mr Crumb’s disappearance – death – and become fully realised in Kevin’s teenage years. And he was, well, a bastard.

A few months into their stay in the cabin, Barry brought Goddard out.

Barry’s disclaimer for Goddard was much the same as what Casey gave Kevin – that Goddard wasn’t true to Mr Crumb; he was a young boy’s imagining of a man who could marry Mrs Crumb and then leave his son with her, while incorporating the few spotty Kevin had of him. 

Goddard stood tall and imposing and gave off the impression of a slender man, thinner that Kevin’s body was. He moved about like a ghost on silent feet, his expressions were brief flickers of emotion that showed nothing of how he felt, and he had this thousand yard stare that drilled into a person’s soul and found them wanting.

And that was all before he opened his mouth and said, “Take the gun off her before she shoots us. What fools are you to trust a woman with a weapon?”

Perhaps bringing Goddard out during her and David’s weekly inventory was a mistake, but it didn’t take long for Casey to not care one whit about Goddard’s opinion of her. The guy was a misogynistic bastard who refused to speak except to disparage her entire sex. Just being near him made her want to hit him over the head with the butt of her rifle.

He never touched her, if that could – horribly – be considered a virtue. He didn’t see women as toys to be used. He saw them as insects to be squashed, and he made a point of it every time he spoke.

Casey figured, after much awful discussion and sifting through slurs and epithets, that this was Kevin’s anger at his mother personified. His feelings for Mrs Crumb had been split up into different alters and most of the negative ones were inside Goddard, escalated to relate to all women.

“Women should clean and cook and stay silent.” “Don’t speak. Every word from a woman’s mouth is pure bile.” “The fickle, temperamental state of a woman’s soul is what has brought the world to ruin.”

It was as if he’d read the misogynist’s handbook and every time Casey appeared in his line of sight, he couldn’t help but spout the spiteful proverbs from its pages.

David reached across the table, over the Smith and Wesson revolver, and took Casey’s hand. She held on tight, crushing the Overseer’s knuckles in her fingers as she weathered the storm. He didn’t so much as flinch.

Joe, aghast on the floor, surrounded by puzzle pieces, cried, “Shut up! Leave her alone!”

Goddard turned dead, accusing eyes on Joe. “Be quiet, son,” he said. “You need to learn that women can’t be trusted.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“You’ll learn one day,” said Goddard, and he dismissed Joe just like that, turning his back on all of them to watch the flames in the fireplace.

David got up. He patted Casey’s shoulder as he passed, ruffled his son’s hair, and went over to Goddard. “You and I need to have a talk.”

Goddard nodded, greeting the older man as if equals. He didn’t see the boiling rage deep within David, shown through the vein in his forehead.

The two men went into the cold night and headed towards the woodworking shed, crunching through the snow. Casey, in the awkward, angry quiet that Goddard left behind, said to Joe, “Your dad is cool.”

“I know,” said Joe. “He’s the best.”

* * *

Casey never knew what David and Goddard discussed in the shed that winter’s evening. Except that when they got back, Barry was in the light and David said, “Goddard won’t bother us again.” Barry treated David with something close to awe for the next few days.

Now, Goddard didn’t so much as flicker in the depths of Kevin’s eyes. Kevin, silent and leaning on the mahogany doorstep, stared off into the depths of the grey, Barry’s same awe set on his face. He was looking after David, long since vanished into the mist.

“Kevin?” said Casey, worried she was about to be verbally assaulted.

Kevin started. “I’m so sorry,” he blurted out. "Goddard's a bastard and he should never have said any of that to you."

He was so imploring, so sincerely sorry, that Casey couldn't help smiling. The relief - the pride - running through her at his dismissal of the alter's opinions made her feel as light as a feather. She held up a gloved hand, covered in dirt, and said, “It's okay. Why don't we go inside.” Kevin, still apologetic, nodded and carried their baskets in.

Once in the cabin, Kevin started washing the vegetables they’d collected and Casey, after washing her hands and changing into cleaner clothes – they’d have to do the laundry soon, and _that_ was an event in itself – set to work on knitting the large blanket she’d neglected since Kevin’s emergence. It was for a friend of Dan’s, a young woman who’d recently had a baby. Casey wasn’t perfect at designs yet, but she’d learned through knitting books Dan brought over how to make a patchwork pattern from her wool. She worked on knitting each square first, and then would put them all together into a rainbow design, starting at the centre of the blanket and radiating outwards. It should, hopefully, look quite nice.

She was on her sixth green square out of twelve. Listening to Kevin going about the kitchen, putting all the vegetables in their proper place and slicing the less perfect capsicum for roasting . . . Kevin started humming _La Vie En Rose_.

Uncounted, wonderful minutes later, Kevin sat next to her on the couch, holding a mug of steaming earl grey tea. She set down the half-finished square on the side table, on top of the list of names, and took the tea, murmuring, “Thanks.” This close, she could smell soap and aftershave and dirt on him.

“David’s a good man,” said Kevin.

“He is,” she agreed, wondering if he was going to reveal what David said in the shed that night so long ago.

He didn’t. Kevin only smiled warmly and sipped at his tea. Casey didn’t mind. She knew David and knew his heart. Their surrogate dad. He was one of the best men Casey had ever known.

“He’ll find Joe easily.”

Kevin nodded.

Curious and hopeful, Casey twisted on her cushion and put her legs across Kevin’s lap, bracing her shoulders on the armrest. Kevin startled, managed to save his mug from splashing hot tea over her legs. Casey waited, fully ready to pull away if he showed any sign of discomfort – of Rakel.

He didn’t. He settled into the new arrangement and placed a large hand on the denim covering her shins, and continued to drink from his cup. A tiny smile played on his lips. He relaxed into his seat a bit further.

They remained like that without speaking. Casey closed her eyes and let the fear of Patricia wander away for a while. She floated on the feeling of sharing space with another human being. Every human wants to be touched with affection, without hint of threat or injury. As Kevin rubbed his thumb absently on her shin and hummed another song – _Hallelujah_ , if she wasn’t mistaken – that part of her soul was soothed.

There was nothing uncontrolled or dangerous about this. Between her and Kevin, she never got that sense of danger. Sure, Patricia and the Beast were, well, themselves, but Kevin didn’t scare her. Her concerns from yesterday, of not knowing him, slipped away as naturally as breathing. Kevin was a kindred spirit; they were two sides of the same coin.

Kevin was Kevin. Kevin was _her_ Kevin.

She smiled, eyes closed.

“Do you ever want to have kids?” he asked.

The smile disappeared. Her eyes opened. She glanced at him, saw he was frowning at her shin. It wasn’t a question that held any implications to it – gosh, she didn’t know _what_ she would have said if he’d been asking _that_ – but was a genuine inquiry from someone who’d had similar difficulty with parental figures.

She considered. She tapped a fingernail on the yellow porcelain of her mug. “I don’t know,” she finally admitted. “When I was younger, I never wanted to. I thought it would be unfair to them to bring them up in this world. But . . . Seeing David and Joe? I guess I’m a bit jealous. And if I could raise a daughter here, away from the city, it wouldn’t be so bad.” She huffed a bitter laugh. “At least I can’t do any worse than Uncle John.”

Kevin’s grip tightened. “Don’t compare yourself to him.”

She shrugged. “It’s true. And you’ll be a better parent than your mom.”

“That’s not hard.”

“Exactly.” Casey sighed and sat up a bit, taking her legs off Kevin’s so she could cross them and lean closer. Catch his gaze. “It’s not about being a perfect parent. No one can be. But we can be good enough.”

“By doing what our parents never did.”

“No, no that will only make you feel as if you’re walking a tightrope all the time. It’ll make the kid stressed and yourself. We’ve got to be like David. He’s not perfect, but he tries his best, and when he screws up, Joe at least knows without a doubt that his dad loves him. That’s all there is to it. Love your kid as best as you know how, and then at least they’ll forgive you if you get something wrong.”

“What if I don’t know how to love them?”

They were inches apart, Kevin’s hand on her knee, Casey leaning into his space. She smiled sweetly and leaned back, poking him in the space between his ribs and hip with her big toe as she did so. He gasped in laughter and wriggled away from her to the other end of the couch. He was, she’d learned four weeks ago, insanely ticklish.

“Don’t worry,” she said, and she sipped her tea. “We’ll help you figure it out.”

He grinned, shook his head, chugged the rest of his tea back and picked up his guitar.

* * *

Joe, at that moment, had been given breakfast – cereal and an apple. It wasn’t even warm. Damn it. At least he could guess he’d been in the cell all night then; unless he’d been there for days and days and this was breakfast five mornings from when he’d been kidnapped . . .

He couldn’t let panic overtake him. His father was coming, surely. All he had to do was keep his wits about him and see if he could figure out who these people were – probably Black Clover – and whether they knew where the cabin was. Because Casey and Kevin were up there, unaware, vulnerable. Their only protection were two dozen weapons and his dad, who was, if he knew his dad, on his way to find where Joe had got to.

There _was_ the Beast . . .

Who wanted to eat them all.

Damn it.

Joe ate his cereal morosely, wishing he’d been awake when they gave it to him. Then he could have seen more of whatever hid on the other side of the cinderblock door. Was this room part of a larger building, or was it a little cinderblock cube in the middle of nowhere? Were they still in Jackson? Were they still in America? If so, how would his dad ever find him? Who was holding him captive? How did they open the door? Could he overpower his food delivery person and escape to freedom and a phone? And what about Ranger Dan, what had happened to him?

He could have known all this if he hadn’t, like a moron, fallen asleep. And his cereal might be less soggy if he’d been awake when they delivered it.

His life sucked.

At that thought, smoke started pouring through tiny pores in the cinderblocks. Thick, white clouds of smoke, that wafted over him like slow moving waves, enveloping his body, closing over his head and his cereal.

“Seriously?” he slurred, and he toppled over sideways, knee hitting the side of the cereal bowl and catapulting soggy flakes and milk all over him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I finished the book and now have time to finish this (I was tempted by the John Wick for a few days there, but then I remembered all you wonderful readers). We'll see how it goes, ya? 
> 
> A brief refresher for anyone who's confused about how we got to this point: Casey, David, Kevin, and Joe are in a cabin in the woods of Wyoming, living off the land, while Kevin's alters are slowly being integrated and he understands those sides of himself, via Casey saying their name and unlocking them. Meanwhile, Patricia is wreaking havoc and threatening to unleash the Beast (lol) on all of them, David's face got on the internet via the local town webcam, Joe's been taken by mysterious people after researching the Black Clover Group and a man has been killed.
> 
> What happens next? We meet Felicia, of course!
> 
> God Bless, everyone!


	14. Felicia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicia was Hedwig's best friend, until Miss Patricia came along

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, hi! Meet Felicia

“You’d be great with kids, by the way,” said Casey. “How’s that looking?” She held up a glass jar of tomatoes to the warm light of the cabin, turning it this way and that to show the tiny yellow seeds floating in the sea of red goop. The whole cabin smelled of boiled tomatoes, a thin, tangy smell, full of sunshine, at odds with the grey day. 

Kevin took it from her, checked the seal of the lid. “Perfect.”

They were, at that moment, canning the first crops of tomatoes, trying out the technique that Casey, in her years of planning of running away from home, had memorised and always wanted to try. It involved boiling the tomatoes for a few minutes, peeling them, putting the tomatoes in a glass jar and topping it up with boiling water and lemon juice. Then, screw on a metal pressure lid, plonk the jar in a stock pot of boiling water, and wait for eight-five minutes. _Et voilà_. Press in the lid to seal and you have canned tomatoes, usable for up to a year.

With the tomatoes they’d harvested, there had been enough for one jar. Kevin put it in the cool cellar for storage, labelled with the date. Experiment over and successful, Kevin took off his apron and turned on Casey.

“What do you mean?”

Casey was checking the food scraps bucket that sat under the sink. “You have an alter who looked after a younger alter. She’s lovely. I think this is full enough.” She dragged the white plastic bucket out and scraped the tomato peelings into it.

Kevin, leaning against the counter, arms crossed and frowning, asked, “Anything bad with her?”

Casey paused to consider, holding the bucket against her hip. “. . . She was one of the first to notice there was anything wrong between your alters. The younger one she looked after . . . he was a catalyst for the whole . . .” she waves a hand to encompass _everything._ Her voice drops, despair coming through. “She was the first to suffer for it.”

* * *

_“Hedwig, that’s amazing!”_

_“You really think so?”_

_“What else have you drawn?”_

_Before Casey, there was Felicia, Hedwig’s fourteen-year-old babysitter and accomplished dancer. She and Hedwig had dance parties together when they had some spare time. Felicia was always there, with Hedwig. Like now, when they sat in Hedwig’s room and Hedwig pointed at the lions and the tigers and the otters and the monkeys he’d drawn, shown to him by Mr Dennis and Barry. Felicia loved the little boy as a brother. She laughed at his antics, scolded him when he used bad language, encouraged him in his drawings and his dancing and his Drake._

_She didn’t age beyond fourteen, didn’t know when she came into being, had no purpose to her existence beyond taking care of the eternally nine Hedwig and dancing with herself in the dark space with the chairs, cartwheeling around the circle. She would wave at Barry as she went past, and then Hedwig would grab her by the hand and bring her into the light with him and they’d be together in glorious reality, making up stories about their futures._

* * *

_“Hedwig! Hedwig, where are you?” Felicia crept around the chairs, trying to spot the rambunctious boy. He had a tendency of jumping up when she least expected it and terrifying the living daylights out of her. No matter how she tried, she always got a fright. The others on the chairs would sometimes react, though more often than not they would remain frozen like zombies, staring blankly at the light. It was a little creepy. She always avoided the tall, lanky boy huddled on his chair because he frightened her. She avoided the weird girl that made prickles run up her arms. She avoided Mr Dennis, the strong man with the glasses and the glare, because she always felt as if she’d done something wrong around him._

_And she_ certainly _avoided the woman in the kimono. That woman was razor sharp, a smile that could slit you from neck to navel and remain unchanged as you lay bleeding on the floor – or, at least, that was the sentiment Hedwig had for Miss Patricia. He’d told Felicia himself how much the woman scared him._

 _Which is why, when Felicia found Hedwig kneeling beside Miss Patricia’s chair, Felicia was disturbed. She hesitated behind the chair of a young lady with an afro who smiled at her briefly, then returned to her reading. Miss Patricia was three chairs along, speaking to Hedwig. Because Felicia couldn’t hear them, she knew Hedwig was using his trick of quietening their conversation so the others couldn’t listen in. It was a trick he used a lot when he had a secret to tell Felicia about one of the other alters. It was_ their _trick._

_Felicia tried to read Miss Patricia’s lips. Lit by the light, Miss Patricia’s angular face was turned in profile to speak to Hedwig. One half of her features was garish white. The other pitch black. Only her eyes, deep, deep green, shone equally bright. Mesmerising. Hedwig looked into those eyes as if they held his future._

_Two words. Felicia managed to understand two words formed by that half mouth of Miss Patricia._

The

Beast.

* * *

_Felicia didn’t know what to do. She might not be involved in the politics of the place with the chairs and the light, but she knew from Hedwig’s gossip that Miss Patricia and Mr Dennis were banned from going into reality because they had some story about a monster who wanted to take the light. Felicia had paid half attention, cartwheeling around and around the chairs as Barry stood and said something to the pair that made them mad, and then those two never stood up anymore. Felicia felt sorry for them, as sorry as you can feel for people that scare you. She couldn’t imagine the pain of being stuck on those chairs._

_She figured Barry, if he had the power to stop Miss Patricia and Mr Dennis, would be the one to tell._

_But she was also fourteen, and Hedwig was_ her _responsibility and she was old enough to fix things herself. She didn’t need Barry’s help._

_So, next time Hedwig came scurrying up to her hissing, “Felicia, come on!” she smiled and held out her hand and allowed him to lead her into the light and into Hedwig’s bedroom. She wondered how she might get him to talk about the Beast and Miss Patricia. She decided that she’d comment on how hard it must be to not be allowed in the light and see what happened from there._

_Turns out, she needn’t have worried, because the first thing Hedwig did was run the two of them over to his desk and point out the new pictures he’d drawn. Of a creature of shadows and screams and huge teeth, and small stick people about to be consumed._

_Felicia stared at this monster and wondered how her darling Hedwig could have ever conjured such a horrible image._

_But, of course, it wasn’t Hedwig. It was Miss Patricia who put the thought in his consciousness._

_“It’s called the Beast,” said Hedwig, lisping the creature’s name with adoration._

_“Oh,” said Felicia._

_“Miss Patricia –” Hedwig licked his lips, looking about himself furtively as if someone was watching. Barry could be, probably was. Hedwig gulped and grinned and Felicia felt his resolve strengthen. “Miss Patricia told me all about him. He’s huge and scary and mean and he’s going to save us. He’s going to hurt everyone who’s ever hurt us, et cetera.”_

_Felicia tried not to let Hedwig see how scared she was, but he knew anyway. He always did. “It’s okay!” he cried. “He won’t hurt us. He eats people who ain’t suffered before, et cetera. You’re fine, see?”_

_When sharing the light, Felicia and Hedwig also shared their thoughts, and his almost manic excitement for the coming of the Beast made Felicia feel sick to her stomach._

_“Hedwig,” she said, “Are you sure Miss Patricia was telling you the truth?”_

_He gasps. “You think she was lying?”_

_“She could be. Miss Patricia was banned, wasn’t she? She’s not to be trusted.”_

_“No, no, no, Barry banned her because he was scared of the Beast. He’s weak. But it’s okay because Mr Dennis is strong and I can take over Barry’s job of who gets the light. It’s going to be awesome!”_

_Felicia reached forward for one of the pictures he’d drawn and saw the sense of terror and awe within it. She needed to tell Barry. She needed to save Hedwig from himself._

_She held the picture in both hands and started to tear it._

_“No!” shouted Hedwig._

_Suddenly they were split, Hedwig controlling their left hand and Felicia controlling their right. Hedwig tried to jerk the page away and Felicia tightened her grasp and there was a shearing noise and the pen and paper Beast ripped in two._

_“NO!” Hedwig screamed._

_Felicia crumpled her half of the page up and flung it away and went to grab another picture, but then Hedwig took control fully._

_“I can’t believe you did that!” he shouted at her. “How could you! You were my friend, et cetera!”_

_“You can’t trust her!” Felicia shouted back. “She’s evil! Look at what you’ve drawn! It’s horrible! How could you want something like that?”_

_Hedwig flung her out of the light and she landed heavily on her chair._

_Felicia hunched over, head in her hands, and started crying._

 

* * *

_Jade got up and sauntered into the light and Hedwig came out, storming over to his chair and blankly ignoring her. Soon enough, he was asleep, as was Miss Patricia and Mr Dennis and most of the other alters. Felicia got up and crept over to Barry in his beanie and his coat and poked his shoulder._

_“Barry,” she hissed._

_He jolted awake, sitting up properly and putting a hand to his beanie as though it might fall off. “Huh? Oh, Felicia?”_

_“Something’s wrong with Hedwig.”_

_Barry sighed, dropped his hand. “I know. I figured it was him monopolising the light. I’ve been losing time.”_

_Felicia knelt at his feet, clasping her hands together. She rubbed her fingers over her knuckles, feeling the small thin ridges, so different to the heavy hands of their light body. Hands that could become the Beast, if Miss Patricia was telling the truth. “He’s been talking to Miss Patricia,” she whispered._

_“What?”_

_“Miss Patricia told him about something called the Beast.”_

_“Oh no.”_

_“He’s been drawing it.”_

_“Felicia, look at me, it’s not real. You don’t have to worry about it, okay doll? I’ll take care of things.” Despite his words, he looked scared. Grownups shouldn’t ever be scared. That scared Felicia more than the pictures did._

_Tears started rolling down her cheeks again. She sobbed. “What’s going to happen to him? I want my Hedwig back!”_

_Barry placed a hand on her shoulder. “Darling, I’m going to sort this out, okay?”_

_“I want my Hedwig! What do I do if I don’t have Hedwig?”_

_“He’ll be fine.”_

_“I want him back, I want him back, I want him back –” She couldn’t stop saying it. It was like she was stuck on repeat. Hedwig was her existence, her everything, and he was going down a path she couldn’t follow. What was she without him?_

_Barry moved his hand to cover her eyes and said, “Sleep. I’ll wake you when it’s all okay again.”_

_She didn’t see the light for a long time after that._

* * *

_“Felicia? Hi, I’m Casey.”_

_“Hedwig! Is Hedwig okay? Is he here? Where is he? I want him back, I want him_ now _!”_

_“I’m here, et cetera.”_

_Felicia’s heart skipped a beat._

_“What do you have to say for yourself, Hedwig?” This from Casey, the girl sitting on the porch with them, wrapped up in a huge winter coat. Felicia was wearing something similar in their shared body with its huge hands. The world around them was white as white and bitterly cold and Felicia breathed it all in. She felt alive for the first time in years._

_“I’m sorry,” said Hedwig._

_“What for?” Casey prompted._

_“Sorry for listening to Miss Patricia about the Beast and disobeying Barry and letting the Beast out.”_

_“And?”_

_“And for being mean to you, Felicia, et cetera.”_

_He did feel sorry, very sorry. It seeped into Felicia’s consciousness and she was delighted to know how much he cared about her – and this new girl, Casey. He seemed to love her as much as he loved Felicia. For a moment, Felicia was jealous._

_But Hedwig’s love overwhelmed that and she was content to be with him, whole again. The split was gone. Things were as they should be._

_Then Casey explained the plan for integration and the idea that Felicia could be closer to Hedwig than ever before, completely enmeshed together. Never again would they feel the heart-wrenching pain of separation._

_Felicia had to ask, though, “What about the Beast? Was he real?”_

_Casey nodded, and Hedwig’s shame swamped their joint consciousness. “Yes. But we stopped him.”_

_“Casey stopped him,” said Hedwig. “She saved us! She’s gonna take care of us from now on, et cetera.” He spoke with utter conviction and it was all the convincing Felicia needed._

_She said, “Okay. I’ll integrate.”_

_“Really?” said Casey, surprised._

_Felicia nodded. “I get to be with Hedwig forever!”_

_Hedwig grinned wide enough for the both of them._

* * *

During Kevin’s trip down memory lane – and his subsequent morbid curiosity about what happened while Felicia was unconscious and Miss Patricia was manipulating Hedwig – Joe was being interrogated.

It wasn’t fun.

The man wore a cream suit, the woman wore pressed slacks, and they splashed freezing water on his face to wake him up from the sedative smoke. He jerked up, banging his funny bone on the cinderblocks and groaning. His whole arm went numb and tingly. Ugh, just his luck.

“Are you guys from the Black Clover Group?” he asked before they could get a word in.

The woman dropped the bucket and shoved her hands into the pockets of her pressed slacks. “Yes,” she said.

“Did you use facial recognition scanning to find my father on that Jackson livestream?”

“Yes.”

“And did you interrogate the guy at the tourism office who told you that Dan knew about us, and that’s why you came by his cabin?”

“Yes.”

“What have you done to Dan?”

“Sorry, my friend,” said the man in the cream suit, standing beside the woman, “but that’s classified.”

“Damn.”

“Indeed. Would you like to tell us where your father is? And Kevin Wendell Crumb and Casey Cooke too, if you please.”

“I don’t think so.” Joe coughed and sat up properly. His arm felt less like a limp pool noodle now and more like an arm. Things were looking up.

“You would be doing the world a huge favour, son.”

The ‘son’ did it. Joe’s anger at this whole situation reared its head. “Favour for who? You guys? So you can keep killing people who are different to continue psycho world order you’ve cooked up? What gave you guys the right to kill my dad?”

“We’ve got an idealist,” said the woman.

“Pity. I prefer cowards.”

“It’s less painful for them.”

“Would you mind being a coward for a moment, son? It will make this easier for you.”

“Screw you!”

The woman picked up the bucket and walked out through the open door of the cinderblock room. The man stood in the doorway, blocking Joe’s sight of the outside. He only saw darkness anyway, and he’d used all his strength just sitting up. Making a break for it wasn’t happening any time soon.

He heard running water, then the woman came back with a full bucket and a towel. She handed the towel to the man.

Joe prayed for his dad to come.


	15. Hedwig

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David searches for Joseph Dunn, Hedwig integrates into Kevin Wendell Crumb, and Casey Cooke is touched by the sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hedwig's here! (Btw, this might be unedited. I'm getting lazy. Siiiigh.)

David pulled up outside Dan’s cabin, chilled from the long drive through the forest on an open quad bike. He killed the engine, felt the cool breeze coming off the lake and snow-capped mountains, even in summer, and remembered that he wasn’t a young man anymore. And his hope of coming to a cabin with smoke curling from the chimney and Dan – his father’s surrogate son, David’s childhood rival, now turned saviour and the object of confused resentment and gratefulness – opening the front door to call, _“Your boy’s making coffee. He’s been expecting you!”_

Then he got hit by a stream of freezing water from a high pressure hose. It blasted him clean off the quadbike and kept pounding him even while he flailed on Dan’s front lawn. It got into his nose, down his throat, his breath became choking, wheezing, trying to drag air into saturated lungs that screamed with pain . . .

Eventually they cut off the water.

He coughed up lungfuls of water, throat stripped raw, his insides churning and sick with water. He felt something prick him in the back of the neck.

 _Take me to Joe,_ he thought, and then his strength gave out.

 

* * *

“Why did he do it?”

“What?”

“Why did Hedwig listen to Patricia? Why did he want the Beast to come?” Kevin couldn’t understand it. Felicia adored Hedwig – _he_ adored Hedwig – but he couldn’t fathom why the young boy could want the Beast to eat the impure.

But then, from Felicia’s memories, Hedwig was an average nine-year-old boy. He liked carnage and predators and would be the type to watch a train accident with open eyes and thought stories about people being attacked by bears were cool; and he had that same childish view of immortality, an unbelief in death. Violence and casualties were cool because they were separate from Hedwig. He would never die himself, so why should he be affected by the deaths of other people?

At least, that’s what Felicia remembered. She also remembered a lonely little boy who wanted a best friend and a mother and a girlfriend and adventure, and all the good things the world had to give.

Unfortunately, the dark side made him an offer first.

“He went with Patricia because he was lonely?”

“He wanted to be special,” said Casey softly. She reached across the dining room table to hold Kevin’s hand. “He wanted to be important to someone.”

“Wasn’t Felicia enough?”

Casey’s eyes grew sadder. “He was nine. Can you expect a nine-year-old to be content with what he has?”

“I don’t know,” Kevin muttered. “I don’t remember being nine.”

“Do you want to?”

He hesitated. Felicia’s agony over Hedwig was still raw and stinging, despite the boy’s apologies. Felicia was hurt. He was hurt. He’d been betrayed by his own consciousness. That sort of thing was almost impossible to comprehend. How does one come to terms with the fact that part of themselves is a traitor to the rest?

He also did and didn’t want to know what happened while Felicia was asleep, while Hedwig and Patricia and Dennis had free reign and the Beast was let out. 

He didn’t want to know how he hurt Casey.

He also knew that, eventually, he’d have to come to terms with it.

“I’m right here,” said Casey. She’d put the food scraps bin back under the sink and sat across from him at the table. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

_How can you promise that?_

Then every integrated alter shouted Casey’s praises at him until he had to mentally raise his hands in surrender and take back the thought. They calmed down, though Luke and Ansel kept muttering angrily about _not knowing a goddess when he saw one_.

“The Beast wants to eat you, though.”

“You’re strong enough to fight him.”

“No, I’m not.”

She sighed. “You’re going to have to be. For me.”

 _No way are we letting the babe get eaten!_ Luke shouted. Ansel joined in, waxing lyrical on what a crime against nature and the universe it would be for Casey Cooke to ever be damaged.

Norma’s quiet voice came underneath the two. _You’re not alone, Kevin. We’re here too. We’re you._

“What if Patricia still has control of Hedwig?” he asks. “Like the twins?”

Casey laughed. Actually laughed. “You have nothing to worry about there.”

* * *

Kevin didn’t anticipate how strong Hedwig’s personality was. He’d gotten used to receiving the memories and understanding the alter, while retaining his normal state of being.

_Hah, normal._

So it was a surprise when Casey said, “Hedwig,” and suddenly Kevin was a nine-year-old boy in love with Casey Cooke.

“Casey!” he lisped.

Casey smiled, but not as he expected. She had this look of almost fear in her eyes. She pulled her hand away from his and said, “Kevin? You still in there?”

Kevin was fighting to come back, he was, but Hedwig was too strong. Hedwig’s face was set in this almost manic grin, teeth bared and disturbing. He jerked to his feet, chair scraping back and tipping and crashing to the ground. To the freezer, opening it, pulling out the blueberry pie. It was covered in plastic wrap that Hedwig ripped off, exposing the thatched pastry laid over the blueberries.

“Dan won’t mind, will he?” said Hedwig, not caring about the answer. “I want some pie. I like pie. Do you like pie?” He thumped the pie down on the counter and found the knife drawer and Kevin started screaming internally because _the pie needed to be baked!_

“Kevin,” said Casey. She got up and came into the kitchen, standing a few feet away and gripping her elbows as was her habit when nervous. It made Kevin nervous. He was clawing his way back to control but Hedwig’s intensity was too much, and this was only a shard of Hedwig. Hedwig had agreed to the integration and was mostly relegated to subconscious but yet he was still potent enough in a diminished form to take over from Kevin.

How could Kevin fight off Dennis?

Or Patricia?

Or the Beast?

Hedwig was rambling about pie and hating Miss Patricia’s sandwiches and how Casey and he could go to the hot pools if she wanted to because he wasn’t weird like Kevin and wouldn’t try to, you know, _do anything_ , et cetera, like Kevin wanted to –

“Shut up!” cried Kevin, and the shard of Hedwig shattered into dust and Kevin had control again. He almost threw the knife back into the drawer and went about covering the pie with more plastic wrap and placing it carefully in the freezer and when all that was done, he slumped onto the kitchen floor like after meeting Polly and Patricia. He leaned his head back on the fridge door and sighed.

“Sorry,” he murmured.

“Don’t be,” said Casey.

And Hedwig’s memories poured themselves into the pool and Kevin saw Casey, terrified, screaming, _“STOP IT, HEDWIG!”_ after Kevin had eaten two girls and killed Dr Fletcher and he was going to eat Casey too, because the Beast would eat the impure, the Beast would save them all, the Beast was awesome and scary and everyone could see how amazing Hedwig was and he wouldn’t have to live in a basement anymore, since Miss Patricia and Mr Dennis needed him and his special power, and _screw Barry_ , because Hedwig had control and –

Kevin groaned and ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Sorry,” he said again. “Hell, Casey, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I can’t believe I –”

He _ate_ people, while Hedwig watched in awe through the light and most of the other alters were screaming in horror, trying to get to the light, but Hedwig had control. He could stop them all. He was going to let the Beast win because that meant they could all win, finally. No more being bullied or shut up in the dark or being called a freak. They were going to be the top predator and everyone would know their name, like Miss Patricia said. They were going to _rule_.

And the Beast tore into another girl’s stomach and Hedwig clapped his hands with glee.

Kevin scrambled up and ran outside, barefoot, to vomit over the side of the porch, splattering the honeysuckle. He dropped to all fours, heaving, feeling the sickest he’d ever been in his life.

Hedwig, in that dark place with the chairs and the light, listened to Miss Patricia telling him he was special and that he could help because the others didn’t understand. But Hedwig could make them understand. This was the only way. It had to be done. And Hedwig was the key. Without him, they were trapped forever and would _die_ , pathetically, like a candle sputtering out in a cellar.

Hedwig wanted to be great and feared and glorious and the Beast was all those things and more and Hedwig could bring him out.

_“He’s done awful things to people and he’ll do awful things to you.”_

Kevin was a monster.

“Kevin, it’s okay, Kevin, look at me.”

But he couldn’t look at her, even though she was right beside him, her hand on his broad shoulder, and he vomited again and felt it burning in his nose. “Go away,” he rasped.

“I’m not leaving you.”

“I tried to _kill_ you! I murdered those girls!” The taste of blood, of gore, when Hedwig took control after the Beast was done with his rituals and their flesh was still on his tongue, stuck between his teeth.

He vomited a third time and all that came up was stringy yellow stomach acid that made his teeth ache.

“You stopped, though. You all decided there was a better way. Kevin, I’ve forgiven you for it.”

He could never forgive himself, though.

* * *

As Kevin stumbled down the stairs into the mist, Casey gave chase. As he was right now, she didn’t trust him not to walk to the edge of the cliff and fall off, blinded by the mist and memories. How could she get through to him? Hedwig had settled down by the time he agreed to the integration, but Kevin was reliving him all over again and focusing, not without good reason, on the awful parts of Hedwig.

But Hedwig wasn’t all bad. He was lonely and wanted to be special and listened to the wrong person. This was Patricia’s fault and her taking advantage of a vulnerable little boy. Hedwig was the victim. She just needed Kevin to see that.

First, though, she needed to get Kevin’s mind out of the black hole he’d fallen into. And she had no idea how.

Kevin stopped by the stream, led by the trickling of the water, and dunked his head into it. Runoff from the hot spring, the water here was lukewarm and relaxing and Kevin’s hair swirled in the currents that cleaned the vomit from his lips. He took a mouthful, swilled it, rose from the water and spat the mouthful back into the stream. He did this three times more until the taste of vomit was almost gone, though it dwelt in the back of his throat where no amount of gargling could get to.

Then Kevin picked up a white rock from the calcium-covered streambed and threw it as hard as he could at a nearby tree and screamed in rage.

_Why the hell was he so screwed up?_

“Kevin –”

“Stop. Stop talking.” His fingers dug into the soft earth, soil pushed under his nails, as more and more and more of Hedwig’s ghastly acts smothered Kevin. The boy had been taken in hook, line, and sinker, and he had doomed them all by joining Patricia. Hedwig was the reason so many of those girls were dead. _Hedwig._ He wanted the boy gone. He didn’t care how dominant Hedwig was, how large a piece he was of Kevin’s soul.

Kevin could do what he did to Ian and Mary.

It could work.

Kevin’s head snapped up and trained on Casey, kneeling on the other side of the stream to him. When had she got there? Why was she looking at him like that, as if he was a wounded animal, about to bite if she got too close.

 _Casey_ , Hedwig whispered. _Casey kissed me._

Kevin almost choked when that memory broke through the rest.

In the basement of the Philadelphia zoo, Casey Cooke and him kissed. A poor kiss, the kiss of a nine-year-old who had no interaction with girls beyond those in his own mind, but . . .

The tone of the memories shifted. Casey took centre stage. At first, it was all fear and him dancing like a freak and telling her she should be scared.

And she told him she was his babysitter, like Felicia used to be, and for a moment he believed it – he wanted it to be true, because he missed Felicia, and Casey seemed nice. He wondered if she’d be his girlfriend. The thought of what Miss Patricia would say if Hedwig got something wrong, though . . .

And then it was _STOP IT, HEDWIG_ and part of him cracked because he’d somehow associated her with Felicia and it was Felicia angry with him, Felicia screaming at him, and he wanted to curl up somewhere and hide.

Then it was her smile in the hospital, saying, “Hi, Hedwig,” in that kind, gentle voice Felicia used, his girlfriend Casey Cooke, who he’d kissed, and then –

_“Do you like Kevin now?”_

Turns out, Hedwig’s top priority wasn’t feeling guilty over the acts of the Beast and his role in it, nor even kidnapping Casey. Hedwig felt the same sadness as a kicked puppy over those things, ever-hopeful that their master would forgive them and play with their toy.

Hedwig’s top priority was figuring out who Casey liked – himself, Barry, Dennis, Joe, or Kevin.

Ansel and Luke joined in the debate and, impossibly, his integrated alters’ combined voices managed to drown out the overwhelming horror of the Beast.

What was _wrong_ with him?

* * *

While Casey was wrestling with what could snap Kevin out of his spiral while also not saying the names of any other alters, the man’s expression changed. It seemed more confused, confused and disturbed, but not in the same way as before. He stood up and Casey stood up too, but Kevin held up a hand. “I’m going into the cabin.” The implied, _please don’t follow me_ , was strong.

“Oh. Okay.” She didn’t want to leave him – she also didn’t want to be stuck outside waiting in the mist – but from the way Kevin was looking at her, encroaching on his privacy right now might be the worst possible action. She understood. After a visit from Uncle John, she would have scratched the eyes out of anyone who invaded her personal space, not that she’d had much of a choice with school.

So she would give Kevin the courtesy she wished she’d had and let him leave in peace. The stream beckoned her up the slope and she turned that way, guided by noise rather than by sight. Unlike Kevin, she’d thought to put on boots – if not socks – and she idly kicked little stones and fallen twigs and pinecones out of her way. Her head was in the clouds, outside and in.

Poor Hedwig. To be taken advantage of by anyone was a horrible thing – but for it to be your _own mind_ manipulating you . . . He was nine, in maturity and wisdom as well as personality, and easy prey. Hedwig’s boisterous nature was a cover for the tragedy of his existence. Apart from Felicia, he was utterly alone. Ignored by many of the alters – who, to be fair, didn’t have full knowledge of the workings of Kevin’s mind themselves. Scorned by others for his immaturity. Barry had told Casey that he tried his best to reach out to the boy, he and Jade and Dennis, before Dennis’ fall from grace, but the boy was too reckless. Too wild. He didn’t listen.

He was, Casey thought, Kevin’s desire to be free personified. The child in him that wanted to escape his mother and explore the world. He loved stories and he loved wild things and he loved adventure, and trapped in Kevin’s body and under Barry’s control, it was no wonder he rebelled when Patricia, the snake, held out her hand and spoke of the Beast.

Hedwig, darling Hedwig. The others might be happy to sit in their chairs and wait for their turn, but not Hedwig. He wanted – _needed_ – to be in control. He couldn’t be chained to one place and expected to accept it.

After months of spending time with him in the cabin, listening to his endless chatter and his enthusiasm for life and dreams for where he was going to go and places he would visit and things he would do – _I want to skydive and I want to ride a tiger and I want to go to a Drake concert!_ – Casey realised Hedwig could never be content as an alter of Kevin Wendell Crumb. She realised it when she saw Hedwig’s expression fall to despair, quickly masked, every time Barry came to say time’s up.

It was only early afternoon, but the mist hanging over Taylor Valley was of such depth and density that the gloom of the forest didn’t recede when Casey reached the hot pool.

Instead of hanging motionless as amongst the trees, the heat of the water caused the mist to swirl, creating an everchanging landscape in shades of grey as the light filtering through struck through the few places the mist thinned, and then was swallowed up by another billow of vapour. Casey sat on a rock, the same rock Joe had sat on only two nights earlier, and watched. It was hypnotising. Her eyes glazed over and the interplay of shadow and light morphed shapes and creatures. Here, a person walking. There, a fish swimming. Once, a rock rising from the water, only to vanish as the hand of God came to shove it back under the surface.

She fell into those same thoughts that had occupied her walk.

Hedwig, unlike most of the other alters, had so much of life in him that he could almost have been his own person – except that he never aged and did not remember his past. He only remembered stories, sucking them up like a sponge and using them to fuel his imaginings of his future. A future he would never have, trapped in Kevin’s body.

There were, in the end, only two options for Hedwig. To take over completely, which he was capable of but didn’t, because even a nine-year-old boy knows someone else should be the one to cook dinner and drive.

Or to integrate and give up those dreams that both inspired and tormented him. He gave up his brilliant individuality for Kevin. Because Casey asked him too.

For the first time since the integration had begun, Casey wondered if integration was simply psychiatrist-speak for death.

* * *

_“I’ll see you soon, Hedwig.”_

_“It’s not going to hurt, is it?”_

_“No, no of course not. Like falling to sleep. And you’ll wake up and we’ll be together again.”_

_“Okay. Can I finally ride the quadbike then? Because I’ll know how since Mr Dennis knows how and – and –”_

_“Yeah. Sure, Hedwig. You can ride the quadbike.”_

_“Cool. And one day, I’m gonna ride a motorbike, et cetera.”_

_“Go with Barry. If you fall asleep now, you can ride the quadbike sooner.”_

* * *

Casey hugged herself on that rock and felt the damp warmth of the heated mist on her skin and soaking into her clothing and felt the weight in her chest. It made it hard to breathe.

Hedwig never knew that when he rode the quadbike, it wouldn’t be him riding it. Hedwig wouldn’t ride a motorbike or draw another lion. It would be Kevin, and all the others, together in a melting pot of merged voices and that was good, that was healthy, that was the best for all of them.

Yet, Hedwig’s bright smile and lisp and _et cetera_ lingered, and the weight in Casey’s chest grew. 

Over the pool, a figure like a boy hovered in a space of shadow. Then a shaft of sunlight pierced through the mist and hit the boy and illuminated him blinding white, an angelic being hanging above the waters. For one heartbeat, two, three, he shone brighter and brighter and brighter . . .

Between one breath and the next, the mist lifted off the pool, the boy soaring up, up, into the heavens, to dissipate, and glorious golden light flooded the world and sparkled on the rippling water. Birdsong came back in a rush, as if it had never gone. The pines all around swayed in the breeze. Life returned to the valley. 

The weight in Casey's chest vanished, and in the space it had taken the smile and the lisp and the  _et cetera_ lodged themselves.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, I keep trying to make these chapters sad and keep them sad and everything so the stakes feel high or whatever, but I can't! At least not to Casey and Kevin. Something inside me rebels at the idea of ending the chapter on a depressing note for these two. 
> 
> Then again, I am being horrible to David and Joe so, well, maybe that balances it out. 
> 
> Anyway, next time: Jelin!! And, unfortunately for my plan of sadness, this one's probably going to be a comedy. I try, I really do. 
> 
> Thanks for reading and kudos-ing and commenting! It means the world to me. Until next time on TJGA. Love y'all!


	16. Jelin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like the saying, tell the story in as many words as it needs. For me, I translate that to, shorter = sweeter. Plus, I do not have the patience or the stamina to read War and Peace or American Gods. However, Coraline and Great Gatsby are right up my alley.
> 
> This is all a preface to let you know: this chapter is a short one. 
> 
> (And no, I'm not making the chapters shorter because I'm lazy. Gosh. Who would accuse me of that? Hahaha. Ha.)

Frankly, Kevin had bigger things to be worrying about than who Casey had a crush on. It was distracting, unwanted, and somehow a betrayal to Casey, and to Joe and David, because Kevin was supposed to be strengthening his resolve to defeat the Patricia and the Beast when they inevitably arose.

Yet, Hedwig had started a train that pulled out of the station much too quickly and now was careering along its tracks towards a half-finished bridge at one-hundred miles an hour and Kevin couldn’t get off. Somehow, thinking about the Beast was almost preferable to this. Almost. 

Hedwig? Did she like Hedwig? Hedwig said yes. Everyone else said no, Kevin most emphatically. Felicia might love Hedwig but she was hardly a comparable female for assuming Casey’s thoughts on the matter. Plus, Kevin had more respect for Casey than that.

Dennis? Gosh, he hoped not. Except . . . if Hedwig was right about this . . .

Dennis liked Casey.

Was Hedwig right? Hedwig wasn’t always objective – nor consistent – with what he saw through the light. He watched some of the time, played with Felicia some of the time, listened to Bible stories from Norma some of the time; he wasn’t the type to keep a close observation journal on Casey’s interactions with Dennis.

But what he _did_ see was Dennis and Casey sitting on the porch together, fishing together, talking and laughing and chatting together. Hedwig, a jealous child, looked away and pouted instead of watching further.

Kevin looked through the living room window at the porch, where he remembered Casey and Dennis’ laughter. Such a rare thing from the angry man. Dennis _had_ to like the girl if he was willing to lower his guard around her. So, what if, confronted by sincerity, she reciprocated?

Dennis, of all people.

No, Casey was more rational than that, surely. Right? Then again, she was the one who forgave him, helped him, trusted him, though he gave her absolutely no reason to. In fact, if she was rational she should have run for the hills as soon as she got out of the basement.

Could he expect her to be rational after what her uncle did to her, after what she went through? She was in some way still broken; the incident with the knife proved it. Ongoing trauma took a long time to recover from, Dr Fletcher said, and would screw with her thinking – he knew it screwed with his.

So maybe she was a masochist, or she liked a project, or some part of her connected with Dennis . . .

Or maybe she liked kinder, nicer guys, who hadn’t ever hurt her.

Like Barry.

Frickin’ Barry.

Barry was everywhere in his alters’ memories. _Everywhere_. Kevin couldn’t get away from him. Wherever he looked, Barry, Barry, Barry. Being kind, being rational, being helpful and healthy and _normal_ and Kevin found it more irritating than usual because did that mean one of his own alters was a better person than he was? He’d always suspected it. It was another thing to be confronted by it.

Here, even the other alters threw up moments of Casey and Barry that Kevin didn’t want to see and yet morbidly couldn’t look away from – them walking the forest and talking late into the night and Barry’s soft smile in the place with the chairs and the light when he came back from visiting Casey.

And there was that comment from Luke – “ _I can see why Barry likes you.”_

 _Oh dear Lord_ , Kevin’s suspicions were right, Casey and _Barry._

 This was not what Kevin should have been thinking about just then – he’d never agonised over a girl’s affections before in his life and it felt like some rite of passage, part of a boy’s growing into a man to like a girl and then be in excruciating pain over it – he should be thinking about Joe or Patricia.

And yet he felt the rising jealousy inside him for all those moments Barry and Dennis and even Hedwig had got to spend with Casey over the last six months in this cabin and _he_ wanted those moments to be his. He wanted Casey to know it was _him_ who spent that time with her and yet he couldn’t quite get there. He still thought of them as his alters, not himself. Those songs Ansel sung to Casey were Ansel’s songs.

A slumbering jealousy reared its head. It was _his_ body damn it! It was _his_! These alters weren’t alters anymore, they were facets of himself, so why did they still feel separate? Why did they have to exist in the first place?

He wanted to be the one living with Casey. But they’d gotten in the way before him and how could he ever be better for her than Barry? Perfect Barry.

It was unfair.

Kevin had already discovered ways to circumvent the self-hypnosis of the integration plan; one way was to be in mortal danger. Another, to mimic the trigger.

Now, he discovered a third way – become the alter without meaning to.

Kevin slipped into Jelin, the fragment alter of bitterness and jealousy, as easily as slipping into a bath. He didn’t mean to. It just happened.

He felt it, this fragment that looked like a girl in his head but in reality had no gender, was merely an imprint of all the missed opportunities, disappointments, and sorrows of his life culminated into a miasma that threatened to sink him lower and lower.

The colour started to fade from the walls of the cabin, and Kevin froze in place in front of the bookshelves, staring into nothing as he got trapped in his head.

* * *

David Dunn woke up in a cinderblock room of different colours. Unbeknownst to him, his son had done the same thing just that morning. However, unlike his son, he didn’t attempt mental arithmetic. He thought to himself, _Where the bloody hell am I?_

Then he tried to sit up and discovered he couldn’t, and that was a surprise since his metabolism usually burned through drugs like they were oxygen. Which meant these people had either used elephant tranquilizer or tailored their hypodermic cocktail to his biochemistry. Same result: David guessed these people knew about him.

It smelled damp in this room. It was cold too. From the back of his skull to his calves he was freezing from lying on the rough cinderblocks, and his sopping wet clothing clung everywhere. He almost couldn’t feel anything, except for that kind of skin-liquifying wet-cold that makes one feel as though they’re decomposing. The ridges of his spine lodged in the grouting between the cinderblocks.

If only they’d turn off those blue light strips. Every time David blinked, the hard lines glowed under his eyelids.

He must have lain there for hours before someone came. The door swung easily. Damn. He’d been hoping it was the type to grate over the floor and get jammed, giving him more chance to get away.

“Where are the others?” asked the woman standing at the door. She wore pressed slacks, her hands tucked into their pockets. Her accent was vaguely eastern European. David, holding his head up, saw the utter lack of compassion in the blue light and knew appealing to her better nature was futile.

“Don’t know,” he grunted.

“We don’t want to kill you,” she said. David thought that unlikely. “We want to understand you.”

“Where’s my son?”

“Close by. You’ll see him if you tell us where they are.”

And Joe would never forgive him for sacrificing Casey and Kevin. Joe was stubbornly heroic about such things.

“We aren’t going to kill them, merely contain. We want to understand you and Kevin.”

“Like zoo animals.”

“You can’t deny you are different. You might be the next stage in evolution, or you might be harmful mutations. We can’t know unless we investigate. The progress of civilisation depends on investigations like these.”

“Killing us wasn’t helping civilisation progress?”

“We want to understand you.”

“Yeah,” David muttered. “You said that.”

Faster than believable, David was up on his feet and throwing himself at her, tackling her to the ground in one move. Her head cracked on the door jam. She crumpled without a sound.

Upon touching her, David had all the information he needed to know that Mr Pritchard had been right. A group of serial murders had been around for the past ten thousand years killing anyone like him and Kevin. Lunatics, the lot of them.

He didn’t have time to consider the implications, though. He needed to find his son.

The cinderblock room opened onto darkness. David blinked, eyes adjusting, and felt airflow going from left to right past his face. It was remarkably fresh and cold, the air of a high altitude summer. David guessed they were still in Jackson, or at least near it. It made sense. If David, Joe, Casey and Kevin all disappeared around the same time, they probably disappeared together. By the Black Clover Group’s thinking, Casey and Kevin would be close by.

David’s vision adjusted to the dim of the short corridor, the blue light in his room creating a perfect rectangle on the opposite wall of cinderblocks. To his left, an open door leading to a grassy, moonlit field. Beyond the field were the ever-present lodgepole pines. Nothing else, except the crisp fragrance of the evening. He couldn’t make out any people or vehicles, not even other buildings. Where were they?

To the right, at the end of the corridor, a thin blue outline of another door.

Without a thought, David went right, running past the blue, red, green, yellow, off-white, indigo, to crash into the door and send it flying open and revealing his son hunched in a corner and soaking wet.

“Joe,” said David, kneeling at the young man’s side. He pressed a hand to Joe’s forehead, felt the fever and the rapid tattoo of his heart beat. Had the impression of water poured over a face, of choking and drowning and paralysing panic.

 _They_ _waterboarded his son._

“Joe,” he repeated, “Can you hear me?”

“Hi, Dad.” Joe coughed and raised his head from his knees. “I knew you’d come sooner or later.”

“Do you know where Dan is?” The impression from the woman showed Dan in a room like this one, but not where. Joe shook his head. “Right. Time to go. Can you stand?”

Hands clasped, one freezing cold, one sickly hot, David pulled Joe to his feet and the two of them took three faltering steps to the door when _she_ appeared. The woman in the pressed slacks.

David didn’t know you could hate someone this much.

Joe shuddered. “Psycho lady,” he whispered, and he coughed again, a sound as if his lungs were tearing themselves apart.

David didn’t know you could hate someone even _more_.

“We just want to understand you,” she said. “Is that so much to ask?”

“You’re, uh, bleeding,” said Joe. He pointed to the side of her neck.

It looked black in the lighting. Great streams of blood ran down her neck, staining the collar of her starched shirt. It came from the back of her skull, where it had met the door jam. David couldn’t muster any guilt. He tended not to kill people, but for her, he would make an exception.

“We’ll be on our way,” he said.

“That’s not possible, I’m afraid.” She smiled thinly, and brought her hands up in front of her chest. They held a hose.

Joe’s breathing hitched, and he started muttering, “Please, not again,” under his breath, and David thought, _enough’s enough._

He let go of Joe and charged at the woman, hose be damned.

But she hit him with a blast of water straight in the face and he stumbled and fell, choking on an entire lungful of water.

“Sometimes,” said the woman, crouching down to his level, “you’ll find that strength won’t win the battle.” Her voice sounded muffled and odd.

David blinked up at her through streaming eyes, trying and failing to breath, and it took him a long, painful moment to understand why she looked absurd. She was wearing a gas mask, a triangle of black over her mouth and nose.

“I look forward to our next meeting, Mr Dunn.” She patted his shoulder and left. A quiet _thunk_ told him the door had closed.

David groaned, reaching for Joe – where was Joe? – but his vision was growing hazy, his strength vanishing. But it wasn’t his vision that was failing. There was smoke on the ground, white clouds of it, washing over his face.

He coughed up the last droplets of water and breathed in the gas.

He heard a thump, and then Joe fell into his line of sight, collapsed on the floor. His brilliant blue bloodshot eyes fluttered shut and he lay still.

David dragged his hand along the rough cinderblocks, fingers catching in the grout, and used the last of his strength to heave his hand onto his son’s shoulder.

Then he was out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor David and Joe. They aren't having a good time are they? Where's Dan, btw? And look! I fixed my problem of never having a cliffhanger for Kevin! I'm improving, yay!
> 
> I hope you're enjoying the dichotomy between Kevin's problems (Casey likes Barry? Gasp, no, not Barry!) and David and Joe's problems (a la waterboarding) as much as I am. But don't worry, folks, Kevin's angst isn't ending here. Mwahaha. 
> 
> Thanks for reading. I'll see you guys next time! God Bless.


	17. Jade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one is having a good time. But at least they're having good conversations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sap. THE SAP! Prepare for sap. It shall ooze between your fingers and run down your arms and stick your sleeves to your skin. Mwahahaha. 
> 
> But seriously. This one is sappy. Be prepared.

Casey found him unmoving by the bookshelves. She stopped at the threshold and took in the taut muscle in his neck, the lumpy, swollen veins in his hands, the thousand yard stare. He’d lost a lot of his bulk since coming to the cabin. Apparently Dennis had been preparing for the Beast’s coming for a few years before she met him, bulking up to give the Beast even more strength to work with. She didn’t know how that worked – there were those stories of alters who had strength that belied the body, able to lift above their body weight with scrawny limbs. Did being physically stronger really help all that much when it came to an alter’s capabilities?

There was David, who didn’t appear strong but could bend a poker between his hands and lift a fridge. If he could do _that_ while being a fifty-something-year-old dad who spent most of his time out of the gym, then perhaps Dennis’ efforts were pointless. The Beast would tear them to shreds regardless of how big his arm muscles were.

Nonetheless, Casey had to admit she preferred Kevin thinner. Both for the fact that he reminded her less of Uncle John, and the stupid, animal part of her brain that figured a skinny Kevin equalled a weak Beast. She tried to crush that thought, but it refused to die.

Then Casey recognised that thousand yard stare.

 _Crap,_ she thought, and she kicked off her boots, slammed the door shut to keep the oncoming night out – Kevin didn’t so much as twitch at the noise – and rushed over to him. She dodged around the table and the back of the couches, past the living room window, to the bookshelves crammed in the far corner, and Kevin.

She tentatively put out a hand to touch his shoulder. He blinked. His eyes dragged themselves slowly up her body to meet her gaze. It took four breathless seconds for him to focus. Pale, crystalline blue _._ Her heart skipped a beat, and not out of worry - damn it, this wasn't the time. 

“Hey,” she said. “You okay?” She knew he wasn’t. She knew Jelin and what the fragment was capable of.

Bitterness and jealousy seemed, on the surface, like normal human emotions. She’d felt jealous of Marcia and Claire often enough at school, and bitter that her life had turned into what it had. The bitterness had, many times, mingled with despair and become the driving force behind the tiny cuts on her palms that healed so well.

But Jelin was something else. Jelin was all Kevin’s bitterness and jealousy collected up over the years and let out once every so often to explode across his consciousness, sweeping everything else aside in its shockwave. Jelin trapped him for hours, kept him spinning through circuits of self-loathing and anger at everyone and everything. And, Casey had to admit, he had a lot to be angry about.

He didn’t _do_ anything, though. Barry or Hedwig usually stepped in to keep Kevin from hurting himself, but the scarring to his psyche lasted for days afterwards. Kevin came out of it quieter, harder, more brittle, an effect that rippled across all his alters no matter how un-self-aware they were. Barry tended to bring Ansel out during those times to play guitar and sing and use creativity to deal with the onslaught, while Barry soothed Jelin into submission.

Ansel’s songs were heart-breaking and haunting after Jelin surfaced. Casey needed him now.

“Ansel?” she whispered. Kevin’s chest moved in and out, not making a sound. He appeared lifeless. His eyes had glazed over again. “Ansel,” she tried again. She licked her lips and placed both hands on his shoulders, holding tighter. Felt the muscle and the tendons under her fingers, the deep hollows behind his collarbones under her thumbs. His warmth. Him. Kevin Wendell Crumb. But he didn’t respond, no matter how many times she said Ansel’s name. The hypnosis trick was broken for Ansel.

She didn't want Kevin to be the one to come out of this, though. She hoped he was strong enough to handle Jelin, feared he wasn't, and prayed that the hypnosis trick still worked for the remaining alters. Kevin needed a distraction right now. 

And still, Casey couldn't bring herself to call Barry's name, though he doubtless would be able to fix this. Her own weakness prevented the name forming on her lips. 

Like a self-inflicted wound, the moment of Kevin’s awakening in the Philadelphia Zoo basement came to her and those awful words she hoped to never hear again.

_“Kill me? . . . Kill me.”_

Please, please, don’t let him ask that of her again. She didn't want her refusal to . . . to kill Barry to be what drove Kevin to suicide. And she didn't want to lose the last opportunity of seeing Barry because of  _Jelin_ of all the alters. 

Steeling her resolve, she skimmed her fingers along the ridges of his shoulders, his neck, her thumbs coming below his eyes, palms on the stubbled ridge of his jaw, fingertips in his dark hair, she sent a quick prayer to Norma’s God. _Please, let her be the right one to bring out._ Because there was no one else anymore.

“Jade.”

He blinked. Once, twice, three times. Back curving, chest shifting, weight moving to rest on one leg and accentuate the shape of his hip. The tiniest changes that told Casey it had worked.

“Tell him you like him,” Jade’s imprint hissed at her, and then she faded away, integrating, and Kevin was back.

He swayed, grabbing a shelf to keep his balance. Casey let go of him. He seemed almost dazed as he brought a hand to his cheek, touching where she had touched.

“Am I going to have diabetes now?” he said absently.

“I – uh – oh.” She frowned. “I’m not sure.”

“Do we have any insulin in the cabin?”

“We have a bit, left over from Jade.”

“We can’t go into town to get more,” he mused, shaking his head as if to get rid of an errant thought. He raised an eyebrow at her, a small, fragile smirk on his lips. “Think we can try extracting it from a deer pancreas?”

Casey was shocked into laughter and, overcome with relief, she hugged him.

A pause.

His arms came around her waist, his cheek pressed to her temple.

And softly, ever so softly and completely on fire with nerves and Jade’s words ringing in her ears – the girl, for all her tough talk and attitude, was a scarily good judge of character and situations – Casey murmured, “I’m so glad I met you, Kevin.”

She felt him go rigid in her arms and she pulled him closer and kept talking, because if she didn’t say it now she might never have the strength. She wasn't one for speeches but right now she needed to keep Kevin from tipping back into Jelin and if it meant crushing down that part of her that shrank from being sentimental, so be it. 

“If it wasn’t for meeting you, I would never have left my uncle. If it wasn’t for what you went through, for your mom and your alters, we wouldn’t have met the way we did and we wouldn’t be here. We wouldn't be together. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have David and Joe as family now. It’s because of _you_ , Kevin, that I’m so much better than I was a year ago. And when I’m around you, I feel calmer. Even when we were in the zoo.” She sighed against his shoulder. “You should know how rare that is, to be calm with someone.

“I know it’s not fair what happened to you. But if it hadn’t, we wouldn't have this.”

Casey let go, slowly, and Kevin released his grip a bit. She leaned back and cupped his face in her hands again, for the delight of being able to do it, and to see that Jelin was well and truly gone. She was. Kevin’s eyes were clear and bright and piercing and her heart jumped again and it wasn’t painful or disconcerting. It felt normal.

She thought of Barry, who used to look at her this way, with these same eyes, and she knew then that calling out Barry wouldn’t be giving him up. Because Kevin _was_ Barry, always had been, and she’d been too distraught to see it.

She said, “You’re going to have to fight. Joe and David aren’t back and, well, I think Mr Pritchard was right. Which means they will come here sooner or later and try to take you. I need you to be strong. Our best defence is that you aren’t special to them anymore.”

She smiled and told Kevin what Barry - who was within Kevin, waiting for her - said so many times while they were together.

“You’re special to me, though. Don’t forget that.”

And Kevin smiled back, tentative, small, wary of kindness but wanting it with everything within him, and she knew that if all the pain and trauma had all been to bring her and Kevin together . . . Well. That was all right then. They might be broken, they might be flawed, but they could find a piece of calm between them.

That was all she asked for.  

* * *

“You’re a better man than he ever was.”

“What are you talking about?”

Dan spat a gob of blood onto a green square and tried to shift into a more comfortable position. All he could manage was a broken slump. David squatted beside him but Dan shrugged him off. He was past help at this point. He could feel it in his bones. Those cretins had done a number on him, all right, and he was decades past his prime – though he’d never admit it.

Ah, well. He’d had a good life. A beautiful family, a great job, experiences that made the heart soar and the soul sing. He only regretted one thing and the Good Lord, in his infinite grace, had given him the chance to right the old wrong.

“He was a good ranger and a great man,” said Dan. “But a poor father.”

David sat back on his heels, frowning. At length, he said, “We have to get out of here.” He started pacing the cinderblock room again, checking the grouting, the light fixtures, the door, as he had been for the past however many hours. Dan’s internal clock told him it was far, far into the night by now. His instinct told him that he and David would be seeing different sunrises. He would be surrounded by his family. He hoped David would be too.

It was getting difficult to breathe.

“Can you forgive me?” he asked.

“For what?”

“For taking your father from you.”

David’s shoulders slumped. He turned, and every line in his face was amplified into a deep crevasse by the interplay of the light strips. He looked suddenly old, exhausted.

He slid to the floor and mirrored Dan’s slouch against the wall opposite. So much strain in his shoulders, so much heart-wrenching worry. He’d explained to Dan that Joe was being waterboarded just down the corridor, that Casey and Kevin had no idea that there were monsters hunting them down. That he was trapped here and all his strength meant nothing. When he attacked the door, jets of water sprayed from the corners and blasted him into a crumpled heap. Once Dan was thrown into the room, David gave up trying to use brute force. No need to get the old man wet and sick too.

An old lion unable to protect its cubs. That was what David reminded Dan of.

“I hated you for years," said David.

Dan nodded. He’d suspected as much. He’d have hated himself too.

“But if it wasn’t for you, my son might have been killed. Thank you.”

“How could I do anything else?”

“It wasn’t your fault the old man stayed up here.”

“Brat. I’m trying to be kind.”

David was too tired to even chuckle. He looked how Dan felt – like his chest was caving in with every breath, growing less alive with each passing second.

“But,” Dan coughed again. More blood. “You are good to those kids.”

“Yeah?” said David. “I ignored Joe when he was a kid. I didn’t understand him.”

“I have yet to see a father and son closer than the two of you. And you’ve become a father to Kevin and Casey too.”

“A father should protect his kids.” David punched the block by his hip hard enough to crack it. “I wasn’t strong enough.”

Dan laughed. “You’ve taught _them_ to be strong. That’s what being a father is all about.”

“Joe is ­­–”

“Joe is old enough to make his own decisions, and he decided to stay with you three. Don’t discredit him by saying he’s in that cell because of you.”

David rubbed his knuckles into his eyes, groaning. “The Beast. Patricia. Casey’s not safe with Kevin.”

At that, Dan laughed again, loudly. David stared at him in disbelief.

“That girl is tougher than all of us combined. She’s the one I’m the least worried about.”

* * *

But something had gone horribly wrong for Casey and Kevin. One moment they were smiling and peaceful, an understanding forming between them that settled the ache in their hearts. And the next, Kevin’s smile turned razor sharp and dangerous, and that pristine voice snarled, “You won’t win,” and his voice changed, becoming Casey’s, and he said, “ _B.T._ ” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> But don't worry, because nothing can stay too sappy in the TJGA universe! Ahaha! 
> 
> If you want to feel better, go read the Ansel chapter. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has commented and kudos-ed and simply read this story. It wouldn't be here without you! Until next time!


	18. B.T.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘Hell is a state of mind . . . And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind – is, in the end, Hell.’ - C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm messing with canon here - Dennis, I know, is supposed to be the first alter, the strongest one since he could endure with what Kevin's mother did to him. So bear with me as I go a little off course in introducing B.T. But this is fanfiction, right? And I've left things ambiguous throughout the story for a reason; explaining in detail how every alter came to be and what they've done and who they are and how they met Casey gets old and formulaic and not every alter would present themselves that way. People are different and how they think and remember is different. This is a story of the mind. It presents itself thus, with all the confusion and ambiguity a mind has.
> 
> Trigger warning for suicidal ideation.

_Their house was small and clean. It had two floors; downstairs, the kitchen connected to the lounge with its dining table, and his parents’ room connected to the combined laundry and bathroom. There were no secret areas in that house. From the centre of the corridor, you could see into all four rooms through their doors and hear if anyone was breathing. In theory. What he usually heard was the sound of the television, always on, its canned laughter echoing off scrubbed, bare, cracking walls. He hated that television because it masked footsteps. It meant he couldn’t hear the monster coming until it was too late._

_When the television wasn’t on, he could hear everything from his little room at the top of the house. Those footsteps, that voice, the front door opening and shutting – a rare thing, because the monster rarely ventured outdoors – it all bounced up the splintery wooden staircase, taking a sharp left, and erupted into his bedroom. The sounds of the house met him while he lay on his cot. He tried not to move because then the monster might remember him._

_His room had black spots that in his lifetime crept across the paintwork to become an inverted night sky, black stars on white. During summer, when he had his window cracked open just enough to beat back the stench of antiseptic and bleach, the black spots would stop their march for a month or two. His room would be fresh and warm and bright. It made the fact of his entrapment in the house a little easier to bear until school started up again._

_Then, either she would find out and shut the window or the autumn cold would spill over the sill and, shivering under his sheets, he’d finally close the window and become drowsy and lightheaded on the vapour of cleaning products._

_From that window, he watched as the neighbourhood children met each other on the street. Beyond the gutter of the downstairs roof, he saw them biking together, playing soccer together, peering furtively at his house together. They whispered about him and the monster and his father and, sometimes, they looked up and saw him gazing at them, the little white shadow with the shorn hair and the huge eyes in a pale face. Most of the time they’d look away, or he’d duck away to lie – don’t let the floorboards creak, avoid the middle board, it was the loudest – on the floor in the beam of sunlight from the bright outside. Other times, they’d keep staring. And they’d shout. He didn’t care about their shouting. It didn’t hurt as much as the monster’s, who shouted right into his face and he didn’t have the option of closing a window on her to block the noise._

_On the days when it was sunny and he’d finished his chores – cooking, cleaning, laundry, homework if it was during semester, chores he didn’t remember doing but he knew they’d been done – he’d lie on that floor for hours and soak in the Philadelphia sun. He heard the kids playing. He imagined he was one of the voices. Laughing with his friends. One of the kids was called Luke and he was the leader. He imagined being Luke._

_Lying on the floor also made hiding under the bed quicker. A useful trick if the television was on and he didn’t hear the footsteps until she was at that sharp left turn on the splintery stairs. It didn’t keep her out long, but it meant it took longer for her to get to him. If he was lying on his bed, she could grab his ankle while he was trying to hide, and then it was all over._

_She got the coat hanger when he was under the bed. She’d use the pointed hook and dig it into his skin and use the pain to get him to come out. He always did. If he resisted too much, she went for the eye. It happened once. The monster made him tell the doctors that he’d been playing outside with the garden rake and been a ‘silly little boy’. After that, she’d made him kneel on the hard ceramic of the bath while she poured bleach over his outstretched arms and made him keep them there. For hours he knelt, aching, feeling the chemical blister his skin._

_He told the doctors that time that she’d been teaching him cooking and there was an accident with the oil. The doctors, he learned as he grew up, didn’t believe him, but he would only repeat to them what the monster said. He feared her more than he trusted the doctors, these strange, different people who changed every time and had these expressions of care and love that even she sometimes got in the evenings after dinner. He knew people could put on faces that hid what was inside. So, when they asked about the other bruises on his chest and arms and thighs and back, he told them he was clumsy and refused to say any more. He was going to be strong, like Dennis. Dennis was his own creation, not stolen like Luke. Dennis was strong and tough and could get through anything. He liked to imagine he was Dennis, because Dennis never cried for his father._

_The monster inhabited every inch of that house. It lurked in the plasterboard, it hunched in the old armchairs, it skulked around corners. Waiting. Watching. Lingering just out of sight. It left him no peace or solitude. Even his own room could be broken into at any moment on its violent whim, and he would be taken. He was owned by it. He lost his identity to it. Can you really be a person when you are the plaything to a beast?_

_Over time, he faded away. If there had been anything to begin with, it was swallowed up in the monster’s angry maw, gulped down, and spat out as an unrecognisable, chewed up mess. He lost even his name. Did he have a name? He must have. He was known by initials, now; B.T. Surely the B and the T stood for something that had once been him but was stripped by her to nothing except the suggestion that once a person had inhabited this large eyed, pale faced shell._

_All he had left was a rectangle of sunlight over floorboards that had long lost their varnish to the friction of the scrubbing brush. A rectangle of warmth from a sun that, maybe, loved him as it loved everyone else. He felt real in the sunlight._

_And then, one day, the sunlight was gone, the inverted galaxy on his ceiling was gone, the house was gone. The walls were bare concrete instead of plaster and there was no small room looking over the street at the playing children. And so unmoored, it didn’t take long for him to be gone too, collapsed like a star. As he had been trapped in his house over summers, he became trapped in his unreality and lack of person. He couldn’t get out. No one let him out. He was no longer anything at all, except the monster’s plaything._

* * *

_She brought him out in sunlight, in front of a window. He looked over a porch and pines and a brook, blanketed with mounds of snow and glittering in the brightness of the sun. He saw gold streaming through the boughs and resting amongst the needles. He felt his own body, standing, beating. He glanced down and saw his nails, slightly too long, and was struck by the inescapable fact of being alive. Real._

How ghastly _, came the thought. It did not sound like his._

_She sat him the sunlight and joined him with her own wooden chair and they remained like that for hours, soaking it in, and he felt more and more alive and abhorred it every second._

Do you wish to be here?

No _, he thought, and was amazed that he was able to think. It seemed such a trial to think. What was the point of words at all, when he had no identity to prescribe them to? He had the idea that if he spoke or thought or moved, it would reinforce him as a person and he did not want that. He wanted to leave the sunlight and return to the dark where he had found a modicum of rest, nightmarish and bitter as it was, where he could rely on the monster to be alive for him and he need only endure. He was good at that._

_But to leave the sunlight would be to move, and thus define his presence to both the girl and himself, and that was unacceptable._

They will offer you a deal. Take it, _said the thought._ I shall see to it your motives are hidden. _It was definitely not his but it wasn’t the monster’s._

_Whatever it was, it required no effort to listen to it._

You don’t want to remain in the light, do you? My dear, it is better for you to sleep and find rest. Your torment will come to an end at last if you do as I say. You can do that, can’t you? You did for her after all, and what I ask is not so hard. You will not be hurt or pained anymore. You won’t have to endure this life. You can rest forever, at no one’s mercy.

_He would no longer be the creature with the white skin and the huge eyes in the pale face. He could be free, forever, and the monster – no one – would touch him ever again. He liked the sound of that, almost as much as he once liked the sun._

Good. Now, relax in the warmth and remember that you loved it once. Focus on that. I shall take care of everything else.

_He closed his eyes and did as the thought bid and was glad in an empty sort of way that he need not decide or do anything at all for the rest of his existence. In fact, he need not even exist at all._

* * *

_When the man with the beanie came to take him away, he went willingly. The voice had explained – he would be called out one last time, and then he would be gone._ Not dead, _said the voice. For he wasn’t truly alive anymore, was he? And he never wanted to be. He’d struggled enough. He’d done enough. He’d endured enough. His talent for endurance would be rewarded at last with rest. The monster would not torment him any longer._

_As he waited in that same place of the monster’s screaming and the digging of the coat hanger into his skin and the dizzying stench of bleach, he wondered if it might be Dennis who was the voice speaking to him. If Dennis was ever real. He would like to meet Dennis, one day. Dennis would be strong like his father had been. Dennis, he was certain, was good, unlike the monster. He could rely on Dennis and the voice._

_All this thinking was tiring, and so he fell back into the monster’s arms and listened to her shrieking._

* * *

As the voice had said, he was brought out one last time. He was poured into the pool and lost himself in the identities of others, and the monster that haunted him hung over them, his search for rest became their search, his wish for nothingness became their wish.

He left his scraps of identity amongst them and was, himself, gone. Free. His torment was at last over and he let himself saturate the others like a poison and the voice laughed in delight.

* * *

Kevin felt B.T. wash through him and everything went cold. Whereas Jelin had been hot and scalding to the touch, B.T. was like an ice bath. That sunlight he had loved did not thaw him in the least – he crystallised inside Kevin’s lungs, stiffened his limbs, rippled over his skin like frostbite.

And Kevin was consumed by the desire to die.

“No,” he groaned.

“What is it?” said Casey. “What’s wrong?” She held his hands, ducking down to catch his gaze but he couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t do anything. It was so _strong_.

It wasn’t separate to him, it wasn’t a sense of an outside force pressing itself into his consciousness. B.T. emerged from inside, fully formed and tangible, full of experiences and understanding that was now Kevin’s experiences and understanding, was _all_ of theirs’ _._ All of them, even Norma, suffered.

He heard the voice, telling him to give up, to give in, he _knew_ whose voice it was but that didn’t matter, couldn’t matter, right then. He heard the voice say it was all right, because he’d suffered enough, surely wanting to rest was not such an evil after all the evil he had been through?

There was no way out of this. Casey could not possibly understand. No one could. He wished to die with every fibre of his being and the wish wasn’t wild or strained. It was a simple wish, as normalised and calm as the wish to be loved or to laugh.

And behind it, the monster reared its head and Kevin saw all that his mother did to him. She’d terrorised him for years upon years. He had no peace, no privacy, no safety in that house. As the memories came, it was as if he was going through the abuse for the first time. Every prick and burn and slap and scream. It bore down on him and B.T.’s wish for destruction grew stronger and more understandable.

“What can I do?” said Casey. She gasped, because Kevin fell hard against the bookcase and collapsed to the ground. More and more and more, B.T. tore up the foundations Casey had been building with the other alters and they were all screaming inside him, from fear, from the pain, was this what a heart attack felt like?

He could not endure this.

But _someone_ could.

So, Kevin summoned his strength and gasped out, in Casey’s voice, “Dennis!”

“No!” Casey cried.

But it was too late.

And Kevin learned that Dennis was not who B.T. had hoped he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Kevin's not a happy camper, is he? And did he make the right decision bringing Dennis out right now? Dennis, who screwed over Casey and those girls so much and was one of the founders of the Cult of the Beast? We'll have to find out. 
> 
> Also, if anyone - anyone at all - feels the same way as B.T. does here, and feels like the only option to getting out of their situation is to end it, please talk to someone. Someone you can trust and will be able to support you. I pray that whoever that is for you, you find them quickly and without stress. Life is supposed to be done together, supported by each other, through thick and thin. We are not creatures of isolation, and that is exactly what depression and suicidal ideation does to us. Taking a conscious step to engage with people and ask for help is a huge victory against isolation and soothing to the soul.
> 
> Please, be safe, everyone. God bless - TOWRTA


	19. Dennis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The strong don't break. They shatter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh, this was a hard chapter to write. It's taken me all week. I hope the work's paid off, though. 
> 
> Poor Dennis.

_Dennis had always been an adult because B.T. believed that a child couldn’t cope with the monster’s abuse. B.T created him to take the physical pain, while B.T. took the emotions and buried them within himself in that black hole that sucked even his will for life away. Dennis, aware of this, was strong enough to resist the black hole. He was strong enough to bear the burn of the iron and the hook of the coat hanger and the blistering of his skin soaking in bleach. He was strong enough to keep functioning afterwards until the pain had receded and the others could take the light without feeling the wounds. Someone had to do it. Dennis was that sacrifice for the greater good of Kevin Wendell Crumb._

* * *

_He dreamed of the trainyard, the place which had taken on a superstitious quality amongst the group because of Kevin’s father’s disappearance. The trainyard was where things went to vanish. Over time, the trainyard became the place where things went to be eaten._

* * *

 

_Barry arrived, birthed by Kevin because they needed someone with compassion to run the group. Dennis, as they had learned, was fallible. Dennis could control situations with his strength and his stare and his precision – the only thing he couldn’t control was himself, when it came to young girls and pornography._

_He never touched them. Only watched. He couldn’t help it. It was as if all the tautness of his person had to release itself and this was the way it chose. He couldn’t remember when it started, only that it did, and now he couldn’t get himself out of it._

_Felicia and Jade and Mary Reynolds gave him a wide berth. Distrust began to spread. Revulsion followed. He felt their disdain. It felt like being mocked. Mocked, despite the fact that he was the one who kept Kevin safe and he took the abuse that the rest of them couldn’t. It was absurd that they would ostracize him for this. Hypocrites. The lot of them. They were all as broken and screwed up as he was, they just weren’t strong enough to admit it to themselves._

_Which is why, when Barry arrived and took one look at him and said, full of understanding and not a hint of contempt, “Come on, Dennis, let’s take a walk,” it took a week for Dennis to agree._

_Under the green canopy of the Wissahickon Valley Park, hidden from the gaze of the others and the distraction of girls, Barry said to Dennis, “I wanted to say thank you for taking care of Kevin.”_

_Dennis had no reply._

_Barry continued on, using Kevin’s mouth. He had control of the light, a difference between him and Dennis. They had few things in common – Barry was at least five years younger than Dennis, and newer to the group, and flamboyant and compassionate and artistic. Dennis was none of this. He was cold and hard as stone. He was made to be that way._

_“The others don’t get it,” Barry continued. “But you’re our saviour.”_

_“Right,” said Dennis. What else was there to say?_

_It was the first of many walks through the park, skirting the river at the bottom of the valley and finding places to sit on fallen logs and be, without judgement. Barry, Dennis learned, had the uncanny ability to see into the soul of a person as if with a magnifying glass. No wonder the others looked up to him so much. No wonder he became the gatekeeper to the light._

_Dennis both enjoyed and resented this ability of Barry’s – because it meant he could not hide himself. Barry knew too much, saw too much. He wouldn’t manipulate Dennis with that information, but it went against Dennis’ very nature to be laid so bare._

_Dennis was supposed to be strong and untouchable. Barry, who could choose when to bring Dennis in and out of the light, who could see every thought and impulse, was a thorn in Dennis’ identity._

_And, even worse, he knew Barry saw that too._

* * *

_“Barry,” he said one day. “Have you heard of the Beast?”_

_Barry looked at him out the corner of one eye. From the sharpness of his expression, Dennis knew the name was not unknown to his fellow alter. He’d heard it in Dennis’ dreams but had enough tact not to bring it up before Dennis did._

_At that moment, they shared the light as Felicia and Hedwig would. Kevin was twenty-four, three years into his job at the Philadelphia Zoo and Dennis and Barry often shared the workload. Barry could talk to the co-workers while Dennis did the heavy lifting. Dennis was, also, learning how to walk and talk and act like Barry all the while. He picked it up unconsciously, enabling him to smile and wave to anyone walking by without having to switch out of the light and throw some weaker alter into whatever potentially dangerous task he was doing._

_Since starting the job, the dreams had come thicker and faster. The roaring of the lions and the whooping of the apes and the chittering of the smaller animals followed him in his sleep and they seemed to come from the trainyard._

_In the times between dreams, when he was in the darkness of the place with the chairs and the light and Barry was letting the others have their turn, he had thoughts. Thoughts of bitterness that he, at first, attributed to Jelin leaking across Kevin’s mind to him. Then he had thoughts of anger at the world, and that could be understood after what he’d been through. Then he had thoughts of wanting to make the world see him and his power and all he’d done for Kevin that the others refused to respect, but these weren’t uncommon to him because, apart from Barry, the others were still as contemptuous and disdainful as ever._

_Then a new thought came, one day._

_The Beast could make that happen. The Beast in the trainyard who whooped and roared and ate everything._

No, no, _said the thought._ The Beast doesn’t eat everything, just the unworthy things. The things that have not been tested through fire like you have, Dennis.

_Then Barry was there, asking him into the light to help haul a very heavy, very sedated Bornean orangutan onto a stretcher and Dennis put the thought aside._

* * *

_“Barry, have you heard of the Beast?”_

_Barry, wary, said, “Tell me about it.”_

_He’d learned that way of speaking from Doctor Fletcher, Dennis knew. He didn’t mind. He liked Doctor Fletcher._

_“He lives in the trainyard. He . . . he eats the impure.”_

_“Impure?”_

_“Those who haven’t suffered.”_

_“I see.” Barry continued to look through the duty roster in the zookeeper’s office, mentally flicking through the tally of alters to see who should have the light when and for what between shifts. They needed to go grocery shopping and to pick up more insulin and there was that leaky pipe in the laundry that needed fixing. Dennis was sure he could do it – so were Mr Pritchard, Luke, and Heinrich – but Jade had told Barry straight up that they had to hire a professional because she wasn’t going to be the one doing the laundry by hand if they screwed up the washing machine._

_He’d also be flicking through Dennis’ dreams and thoughts and wonderings like Doctor Fletcher would with a patient file, reacquainting himself with the specifics._

_“Where did you hear this?” asked Barry._

_“. . . Dreams,” said Dennis._

_“That’s funny,” said Barry, lightly. “I had Patricia telling me the same thing yesterday.”_

_Dennis didn’t know this. He thought he knew everything. It was part of who Dennis was, to be aware of what was happening, even if he didn’t quite have the same level of intimacy with the thoughts and feelings of the others. He at least knew when people were talking._

_Barry slipped out of the light and Jade stepped up and Barry and Dennis stared at each across the circle of chairs. The betrayal was a stab in the heart._

_Was it because of this Beast, that Barry had started filtering Dennis’ awareness?_

_Barry’s face fell and Dennis knew him well enough to know what he wanted to say –_ sorry for having to do this, it’s for your own good, let me explain, please _– but Dennis hated the word please with a passion because Kevin’s mother used it as a guilt trip to manipulate him and Barry should have known, did know, he could see it in Barry’s face that he realised his mistake, but it was too late._

_Dennis stood from his chair and went to talk to Patricia about the Beast._

* * *

_It took a month for Barry to step in at the urging of the others. He said to Dennis, “She’s manipulating you.”_

_“The Beast will come,” said Dennis. “It’s only a matter of time.”_

_Barry sighed. “Will you let this go? You’re scaring the others.”_

_Dennis folded his arms. He couldn’t see into Barry’s head anymore, couldn’t see anything anymore. His vision of the world inside Kevin’s head was clouded. His only outlet was the work in the zoo and, bit by bit, Barry had been using Heinrich’s strength to do the work while keeping the Russian man’s personality dampened so as not to confuse their fellow zoo keepers._

_“I don’t want to do this,” Barry pleaded. “We need to be a team.”_

You were the one who broke the team first.

_“So be it. Until you give up this fantasy about the Beast, you and Patricia are banished.”_

_Dennis, until that moment, hadn’t believed Barry would do it._

_Now that he had, and chains sprung out of Dennis’ chair and anchored him into place and he couldn’t move, couldn’t fight, couldn’t do a single thing with all his strength. He was trapped in the place with the chairs and the light and the darkness._

_Patricia, not far down the circle from him, laughed at Barry. She looked relaxed despite the chains across her lap. “These chains won’t hold him back,” she called. “You do not know how powerful he is.”_

_“I do,” said Barry. “Because he isn’t real.”_

_That was Barry’s second mistake._

* * *

 

_The others, who had disdained Dennis for his addictions before, now ridiculed him for his beliefs. They called him and Patricia and Hedwig ‘the horde’. They mocked him, laughed at him. It was as if all he had done for Kevin was worth nothing to them. As if he was nothing to them._

_If Barry had hoped Dennis might forget the Beast, his exile of the strong alter destroyed that chance. Stuck in his chair without purpose, Dennis became almost as bitter as Jelin. It was inevitable that Dennis, fuelled by desperation, would become obsessed with the Beast. His dreams, waking and sleeping, fed into this. He came to see himself and Patricia and Hedwig as opposition to the rest, the vanguard of the Beast. The others would understand, eventually, that this was the right way. Until then, Dennis would take their ridicule and use is as incentive._

_Dennis grew increasingly monosyllabic. Fine. Hedwig, who could not be chained no matter how hard Barry tried, chattered enough for all of them put together. Patricia kept him close, whispering in his ear stories of the Beast that Hedwig would then scamper over to Dennis to repeat and Dennis would nod, already knowing them from his own dreams. He waited. He practiced patience. Their chance would come, and a few years later it did._

_It was the incident with the girls putting Kevin’s hands under their shirts and Dennis watched on in grim amusement as Barry flailed and failed to cope. B.T. swelled inside them, swamping them all with emotions from traumas most of them didn’t even remember, and others had forcefully forgotten to stay functional. But this time it was too strong. Even compassionate, competent Barry couldn’t handle it. The waves pulled him under. His hold on the light wavered and the chains fell away from Dennis and Patricia._

_Dennis stood to stretch his legs for the first time in years. It was like moving through molasses made of despair as B.T. pulsed, smothering and cold. But Dennis was made for moments like this. He slowly, deliberately, strode over to Barry._

_He looked down on gatekeeper. Barry groaned, eyes shut and insensible. It was part of the plan to keep Barry remain unaware for as long as possible._

_“I’ll take it from here,” Dennis murmured, knowing Barry wouldn’t hear him._

_Hedwig, as oblivious to the feelings of the other alters as usual, jumped forward like a monkey and nudged Dennis into the light. The first thing Dennis did was find his glasses in the bathroom cabinet of their flat. The next, he rang the zoo manager to ask if the rooms near the service halls were still available for him to take. He was having issues with his current landlord, he explained._

_Patricia looked on, smiling sharply to herself. If she had been aware of the savagery she, Dennis, and Hedwig were about to inflict on the world, she kept it to herself._

* * *

_“We can start again, if she lets us,” said Barry, as Dennis drove the van to Ithaca._

_Dennis looked at Casey, and as the others wondered whether this would work, Dennis came to a realisation._

_“No,” said Barry, panicky. “Dennis, no.”_

_Dennis scowled, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. He tried planning for when they arrived at the safehouse, what sort of state it might be in. How much cleaning it would need, the food to buy, how to care for Casey with her wound, a long, meandering list of worries and concerns that he needed to focus on, except Barry wouldn’t shut up._

_“We can’t do this without you. It’s all of us or none of us. If even one person –”_

_“You think Patricia and the Beast are going to integrate freely?” Dennis growled. Barry was silent for a second and the rumbling of the van rose in the gaps in conversation. It was a good four hour drive to Ithaca and it was already promising to be an awkward one. He could get Heinrich to drive, or Mr Pritchard, but then he’d be stuck on his chair with Barry pleading with him and Patricia leering and the Beast in its trainyard, throbbing in his consciousness._

_Cold rippled over him and his stomach turned over. What the hell? He never got sick. What was this?_

It’s the stress _, murmured Barry. He didn’t try to take over. He let Dennis drive and spoke through the light._ Our body can’t handle it.

_“I can.”_

No _. Barry sounded mournful._ No, you can’t. Everyone breaks at some point, especially the strong ones.

_The cold was nestling in, settling into his bones, and he shivered. His hands twitched on the wheel, the van swerved, he swore and corrected and that realisation he’d had seconds before thrummed again. The realisation that, no matter how much he wanted to integrate to save Kevin, as recompense for what he did, his wants had very little to do with reality._

_For example, he wanted to forget everything._

_And yet every detail of the whole ghastly enterprise was stained in his mind. The too many who had been taken, kicking and screaming, to their deaths. The too many who danced before him naked, forced by his own hand, and the too many of those same girls shredded by his own teeth. He brushed the gore away from by those same teeth night after night._

_How could he forget any of that, least of all forgive himself for it? How could he even trust himself anymore? He’d thought himself impervious to manipulation, too wise and shrewd to be duped, and yet he’d followed Patricia willingly into Hell._

_The others might be able to forgive themselves and melt quietly into Kevin, but not him. Forgiveness required grace, love, gentleness. He had none of these. He was created without them._

She was manipulating you. It wasn’t your fault!

_Not good enough. There are some things that aren’t forgivable, no matter how understandable._

Talk to Norma. She can explain ­–

_“Enough. It’s done.”_

You can’t stay like this. You’ll upset everything with Kevin. He won’t be able to handle the guilt.

_“Good.” It would teach the boy not to hurt anyone like Dennis had ever again._

We need you. Darling, you’re our strength, our backbone. Kevin needs you!

_Barry was panicking truly now. He never called Dennis by a pet name. It was a nervous tick that came out when events were spiralling out of control and he had to, in some small way, ameliorate the situation with platitudes._

_Dennis shivered again. He was so, so tired, right down to his soul. He couldn’t take this anymore. He had the will for one last stand and this was it – to hold on to the guilt, for the sake of all those he had hurt._

Darling, that’s not how it works.

_“Don’t tell Casey.”_

She’ll know.

_“No, she won’t.” Because Dennis was the best actor of all of them. After being Barry for weeks with Doctor Fletcher, masking his innermost thoughts around Casey Cooke was child’s play._

_At that moment, snow started falling, thicker and faster by the second, and before he could say it, Dennis was driving through a blizzard. He turned the heater on and kept driving in this little world of white and Casey’s breathing and the humming of the vents pumping out stale, warm air._

I can’t do this without you.

_“Don’t let the others know.”_

We’re going to work through this. The others have problems that need to be resolved too before they integrate. Casey will help.

_“Shut up, Barry. Let me drive.”_

_Dennis gripped the steering wheel of the van tighter, knuckles whitening, trying to focus on the road. He wasn’t wearing his glasses and his blurred vision and the white-out made it easier to retreat inside himself and detach from reality, something he couldn’t afford to do right then. He felt cold and nauseous and exhausted and sick of being strong._

_Suddenly, his vision cleared. Dennis took the peace offering for what it was._

_“Thanks.”_

I’m sorry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up on TJGA: Aftermath, Orwell, and Joseph Dunn. Keep a look out, folks (and I'll eventually reply to all the wonderful comments you guys keep leaving. I adore them, truly, I do. They keep me writing :D )
> 
> God Bless, darlings!


	20. Orwell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David and Joe are on the move, while Casey and Kevin have come to an impasse, one that might just get everyone killed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, so, I got distracted this weekend by Stranger Things 3 (and thus wrote a short fix-it oneshot for a certain Billy Hargrove because the way the Duffer Brothers handled his character arc left me depressed; it's called 'How the Redemption Arc of Billy Hargrove Should Have Ended' if you want to look it up. 
> 
> Yet somehow I still managed to write this chapter. Woo! I swear, that 'happy ending' tag is not a lie. This will end happily. Just . . . be patient. Night is darkest before the dawn and all that. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has stuck through this with me and has been willing to watch me fumble my way through a subject that was really much harder than I expected it to be. You guys are the real heroes here. Thank you!

_This must be how Dad feels_ , thought Joe, as they pulled the cloth away and allowed him to lean forward, coughing up mouthfuls of water. He had never felt as frozen or sick in his life. His stomach had turned to water, his lungs mushy and wobbling about inside his ribcage.

“Give it up, boy,” said the man in the tan suit.

“We can keep you alive for as long as we need you,” said the woman in the pressed slacks. “This will only end when we get bored.” Joe really wished that the blow to her head had knocked her out for longer. How long had they been doing this for now? Hours. He wanted them to stop – _really_ wanted them to stop. He wanted them to stop more every time they picked up the cloth again. He’d thought that perhaps he’d reach a state of not caring, when he became inured to the pain and reached a sense of peace and resignation.

That had not happened. He was growing more desperate by the second.

The man in the tan suit crouched beside Joe’s chair. In the dim light, his eyes were two dark slits in his face. They held no emotion. “Tell us where they are and this will all come to an end. We don’t kill normal people.”

Joe groaned. He saw the dripping cloth in the woman’s hand.

His will broke. He hoped Kevin and Casey could forgive him.

* * *

“Get up! We’re going.” The woman in the pressed slacks grabbed David by the arm and hauled him up. They’d gassed him before she entered, and she wore that triangular face mask against the last threads of white smoke. David stumbled along at her side. He didn’t have the strength to ask what was happening. He didn’t even have the mental capacity to be sorry that they were leaving Dan’s body behind.

The woman marched him through the corridor and out onto the open field, under the bright expanse of the night sky. It was breathtaking, if David had any breath to take. Water still pooled in his lungs, making him cough with every third inhalation.

An SUV idled a few paces from the exit. Through the open back door, Joe could be seen, hands cuffed to a rail bolted to the SUV’s ceiling. His head lolled on his shoulders.

David got angry and some of his strength returned. Enough to rip his arm free of her grasp and start stumbling towards his son, but a sharp point stabbed into the back of his neck and fell face-first into the dirt.

He never did see the facility where they’d held him and his son and Dan. In fact, he never saw Dan’s body ever again. By the time David came ‘round, it was three hours later and the SUV was part of a convoy driving up a black stretch of woodland road, the headlights of the car behind briefly alighting on a set of very familiar solar panels.

* * *

_It’s going to be okay,_ thought Casey. She’d been shocked to hear her voice from Kevin’s mouth – to hear him say Dennis’ name, knowing the memories the alter held – but maybe this was for the best. Dennis was the strongest alter. During their six months together, he’d proved how easily he took things in his stride. He could cope with anything. He was probably the perfect alter to bring out now.

At least, that’s what Casey thought when Kevin suddenly stopped groaning and sat up. But his face wasn’t set in Dennis’ customary scowl. He didn’t squint or ask for his glasses. He didn’t fold his arms or roll his shoulders back into that more intimidating stance he usually took.

He leaned back against the bookshelves, head propped up on a set of wilderness adventure novels, and seemed to . . . collapse. Give up. The lines of his face drooped and all the tension went out of his muscles. This wasn’t Dennis. Something must have gone wrong. But Casey hadn’t met any alter like this.

He didn’t speak. At last, she whispered, “Kevin?”

No response. He stared into space, eyes glazed and dead, and if it wasn’t for the rise and fall of his chest, she wouldn’t have known he was alive.

“Kevin, what’s going on?” Nothing. She touched his shoulder. He didn’t so much as twitch. “Kevin, this isn’t funny.”

No, it really wasn’t, and yet he was as motionless and unresponsive as a coma patient. She waved a hand in front of his eyes and his irises flickered, following the movement reflexively, then retrained on the middle distance and ignored all her other attempts to divert his gaze. She took his hand, squeezed it. His fingers were freezing cold.

What was going on in that mind of his? What had Dennis poured into him? Why had _Dennis_ , of all the alters, produced this response?

Barry’s name came to her lips again, but Casey couldn’t say it. She licked them instead, patted Kevin’s knee, and went to the kitchen. They hadn’t had lunch yet and Casey needed to do something with her hands. She couldn’t knit because that was too mindless and would indulge thoughts of David and Joe and the fact that Kevin now remembered with greater clarity what exactly he had done to her and Claire and Marcia and countless other young girls during those three weeks of winter last year.

On her way to the kitchen, Casey checked the fireplace, decided that they needed more logs, and went out of the cabin’s uncomfortable silence into the fresh air. The grey had well and truly broken now and a bright summer’s day descended over the valley. The sun hung high and bright in the sky and the roar of the waterfall and the chittering and whooping of the summer birds replaced the muffling mist. It felt as far from winter as it was possible to get. Everything felt clean and lovely. Casey stood at the edge of the porch, smelling honeysuckle and pine. This should have been paradise. But she couldn’t enjoy it. Somewhere out there were Joe and David. Inside, Kevin had become a zombie.

 _Please, Lord,_ she thought, _help us._

A sharp screech from some large bird in one of the trees startled her into action. She walked down the steps and collected the split logs from under the porch. Then, kicking her boots off inside the door, she stacked the wood on the stone tiles of the hearth. She did two more trips until she had a dozen logs and plenty of kindling.

All through this, Kevin did not move. Even as she set about lunch – simple grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato and slices of ham that needed to be used – he had no comment. Never offered to help. Never gave any hint that he even knew she was cooking.

She made two sandwiches. She hesitated, then crossed over to him and offered him a plate. The smell of melted cheese and fried bread was mouth-watering, and after a long morning of working in the greenhouse and then the stress of Hedwig and B.T., Casey was starving. Knowing Kevin’s appetite as she did, she figured he would be too.

He didn’t so much as look at the sandwich.

“You have to eat,” she said. “Come on, for me.” She held the plate above his knees for a full minute before giving up. “I’ll leave it here, then.” She placed it on top of the bookcase, which was bolted to the wall so she wasn’t worried about him accidentally knocking it off if he jolted the shelves.

The minutes ticked by and her anxiety grew worse. Casey tried knitting, tried reading, tried tidying her room, tried matching ammunition to weaponry, though she felt guilty and uncomfortable doing it because this was hers and David’s ritual and she soon stopped. She tried drawing, tried playing a tune on the guitar Ansel had taught her. Tried praying. Tried everything she could think of and nothing helped. She didn’t want to leave Kevin alone in the cabin, even though the activities that would actually take her mind off things were all out of doors. She resigned herself to cabin fever.

It got so late that she ended up setting the fire and starting on dinner. Night spread across the valley, creeping out from caves and trees. While the soup bubbled away, Casey went onto the porch and watched the sun set over the canopy, watched the sky pale into pink and green and yellow. Watched the stars come out one by one and heard the summer birds call good night to each other. The animals of the valley went to their dens and burrows and caves and settled down, while their smaller, more hesitant cousins awoke to try their luck with the scraps the day walkers had left behind. Golden twilight came and went and darkness closed its fist. The cloudless sky promised for a cold night. Casey shivered – it seemed as the summer warmth had vanished with the sun.

And so she went inside to ladle the soup into their bowls, crumbled croutons on top – really three-day-old bread she had toasted under the grill – and set the table. “Dinner’s ready,” she called to Kevin, without expecting a response. She didn’t get one.

How many times had she wished for this in her short lifetime? When she was with Uncle John, she dreamed of meeting someone whom she could spend time with unencumbered, unjudged. She didn’t mean _this_. She’d prefer Kevin’s Mr Pritchard rambles about security of the house and how best to defend oneself if attacked in a supermarket than this . . . this _coma_.

The night set in and lengthened without comment from Kevin. Even as the clock ticked past midnight and all the dishes and utensils had been cleaned and put away, Casey refused to go to bed. She sat on the armchair to the side of the fire, where she could keep the bookcase in view, and tried knitting again.

Only Orwell, Barry, Patricia, and the Beast left. With Patricia manipulating Kevin still, Casey did not know who she would see next. She wasn’t about to try forcing another alter onto him to break this silence either – that was a step too far into Patricia’s territory for her liking.

Waiting was the only weapon she had. She was good at waiting. Waiting for deer, waiting for bears, waiting to be free.

 

* * *

“I’m sorry.”

She jumped, dropping a knitting needle. Casey left the wool and needles on the armchair and went to him, sitting cross-legged inches from his toes. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

He moved for the first time in hours. Jerky movements, drawing his legs up to mirror her position, leaning away from the bookcase and rolling his shoulders, bending his spine. He blinked slowly. His focus sharpened, on her.

“I’m sorry for kidnapping you. For hurting all those girls.” Kevin spoke barely above a whisper and there was this note of calm in his words that rubbed Casey wrong. It wasn’t a peaceful calm – it was the calm of a dead place, of the grave. Calm that came when hope disintegrated and floated away, bade a resigned goodbye.

“You’ve already apologised,” she replied.

“I know.” He flexes his fingers on his knees and she notices, and then looks back at him to meet that gaze that refuses to move from her face. Dead-eyed, blank. It’s worse than his voice. “I didn’t want to kill them. I didn’t mean for any of them to die.”

She leaned towards him and asked gently, “Kevin, what happened when Dennis integrated?”

“I understood him,” he murmured. “I understood why he did it. And I understood why he can’t forgive himself.”

“What?” _What?_ “Dennis has forgiven himself. He told me.”

Kevin shook his head. “No. He only wanted to shield you. But he decided that he wasn’t worthy of forgiveness before we even came here. There was nothing you could do.”

“But . . .” Months, _months_ , of Dennis acting happy and whole and free of Patricia and the guilt of what he’d done, and it was all a _lie_? But this was Dennis. Casey _knew_ Dennis. They were friends, they’d talked for hours, she understood him.

Kevin touched her cheek, trailing, cold. Like the affection of a dying man. “He didn’t want to hurt you.”

“No, no, it’s okay.” She smiled. “You’re not only Dennis. You’re Norma and Bernice and Ansel, too. You’re going to be fine.”

He dropped his hand away. Clasped his hands together in his lap. “No.”

“No? What do you mean, no?”

“What Dennis – what I did – was unforgivable.”

“But – after Hedwig you . . .”

“Hedwig’s a child. He doesn’t understand consequences. I do. I _killed_ them, Casey. So many girls. And I _ate_ them.”

“But that wasn’t you!”

“It _was_ me!” he exploded. “Don’t you see, it’s _all_ me! I am Patricia and the Beast and Dennis. I kidnapped those girls and murdered them for some insane ritual to get back at the world because I’m insane! I’m not worth forgiving! I’m barely even human!”

“Kevin, you can’t give up.”

“Yes, I can. What’s there to live for, anyway? How can I _possibly_ expect to have a life after what I did?”

“Because you deserve one! This all happened because of your mother, not you.” Casey scrabbled forward, grabbed both his hands in hers. “It _wasn’t your fault._ ”

“You wouldn’t have split.”

She froze, taken aback. “What?”

He repeated, flatly, “You wouldn’t have split. You’re strong. You wouldn’t have become a murderer.”

Casey thought back to when she was younger and she held the shotgun at her uncle’s chest, but was too scared to pull the trigger. She wished, so much, that she’d done it. At that age the authorities would have reprimanded her father for allowing a child access to dangerous weaponry, but neither of them would have gone to jail. And when her father died, she might have been allowed to stay with the neighbours, the lovely Owens couple, who had been like surrogate grandparents her entire life. She would have had a life, if she pulled that trigger. In her dreams, she had.

“Don’t be so sure,” she muttered.

“I can’t forgive myself,” he said. “I never will.”

“Then you’re killing me.” She ripped her hands away. “If you don’t _fight_ this, when _he_ comes out – and we know he will, because she’s still in there manipulating you – when he comes, he will eat me. _You_ will eat me. And all this would have been for nothing and you will be exactly who you think you are. A murderer. A cannibal. Less than human.”

Kevin shook his head. “I can’t fight anymore. I’m tired of fighting.”

“Coward.”

“Yes. I’m not like you. You’ve fought your entire life to survive. I broke apart. We’re not the same.”

“I know that! But how can you give up now?” She wanted to scream at him, to make him understand. He needed to know on much was at stake right now – if he gave up, then everything was lost.

“Fine,” she snapped. “If Dennis wasn’t helpful than maybe you need someone with a little more perspective. _Orwell_.”

Kevin’s dead-eyed gaze didn’t even waver. She’d been hoping for Orwell’s pretentious, rather irritating prattle to come bursting forth with proclamations of ancient victories and how one must stand strong against all foes if life is to succeed.

But what Kevin said, upon Orwell’s integration, was, “Not every battle can be won.”

And he blinked, and he smiled, and Casey felt chilled to the core, despite the roaring fire.

His smile was razor sharp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 19/07/19 update: I've lost control of this story. Such is the horror of writing periodically without preplanning the entire story. There's a reason novelists write an entire draft and then immediately rewrite it, because before you've written the ending you can't write the beginning. At least, that's how it is for me. Which means that, as I write, I diverge more and more from the beginning and it's getting impossible to keep all the threads neat and tidy. All I see is a huge, tangled knot. I wish I didn't have to be one of those fanfic writers, but I see now why they do it - I'm taking a break to figure out what this story is. 
> 
> I hope to finish it one day, because I want that happy ending for Kevin and Casey, but at the moment I'm tempted to just have the Beast win and kill them all and be done with it. That's my level of frustration. 
> 
> Sorry. Thank you for reading. In the future, you might check back and find I've updated.   
> I'm so sorry.


End file.
